This Dressing Business

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 382, 16 June 1928, Page 20

This Dressing Business

The Art it Is

BEAN’S inevitable comment in his diary, at the commencement of a new day, was “Got up.” This is a classic slogan for the beginning of each epic of twenty-four hours.

The one following it involves a lot of subtleties and complications: “Put on my clothes,” if you are a woman, and, of course, you are, when you read fashions. The putting on the clothes means a great deal. Just getting into the protective covering demanded by the police has very little to do with the case. One of the great arts of France is the transformation of clothes from their ; quality of usefulness to a decorative aspect as well. They must not lose their necessary trait of being useful, s but at the same time, in France, they ; must be ornamental also. Any little ; Montmartre maiden can tell you this. : She will also add her opinion that English women think far too little of , the decorative side of clothes for the practical. My own opinion (writes “Germaine”) is that Englishwomen think a vast too much of the utilitarian purpose of their clothes—how long they will wear, etc. They want smart clothes; oh, yes, indeed, but they want them to endure through sunny, snowy, and rainy seasons. Therefore, they often fail in attaining the grand chic, which is an inalienable attribute of the true Parisienne. Don’t expect too much wear from your clothes, and you have a chance to indulge in some sort of a beautiful fantasy in delicate colour harmonies, and in lines that would otherwise be verboten. You can get along easily an entire season without many changes in costume, but each ensemble should not be chosen because it will do duty for more than one season of the day. These daily seasons are, roughly speaking, divided into four semesters. The morning season—the afternoon—the dinner, and the evening. Sometimes, the seasons merge, so that two

of them become one, as, for instance, afternoon and dinner seasons, or dinner and evening. In these cases, don’t let your toilette be cut and dried for one daily season only. Never take the stability of morning into the erratic gaiety of evening. I haven’t any faith in those costumes which are supposed to cover every occasion of day or evening. Maybe they are immensely successful for isolated women, but in my experience they do not function properly. So, to be safe, divide your day into as many seasons as your purse and your station demand. And let it go at that. It is better than essaying the impossible. There are many good models to be seen this season in black, and if our purse is limited, we do well to choose black. Black satin, black moire, black crepe de chine, black marocain, and black kasha, all go to make coats and dresses, from which we can select. A number of coats in soft black cloth or dull black satin are this year trimmed in ermine. Bright colours do not look well in the street, and unless one has a car to hop in and out of, and an unlimited bank account, so that one can, when tired of red ensembles, or of the green frock, cast them aside for other colours, it is more sensible to have black, or black and white.