PARIS FASHIONS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 187, 12 September 1914, Page 6

PARIS FASHIONS.

SYMPHONIES IN WHITE.

WELL-DRESSED women art not wanting in Paris even at this time of the year, but they are generally seen in travelling dress or in the strictly tailor-made costume which women put on when they are bent on serious shopping or are just halting in the city for a day or two before going on to some visit, or some cure, or a sojourn at the sea, or in the mountains.

. Here and there a simple white dress appears, and in the restaurants passing people who are not Parisians air their fine feathers; but the majority of women whose indefinable ''something'' marks them as '''somebody'' are now to be seen only inrfKe sort of eletkes one wears when just on the point of going away—neat dark blue tailor-mades with spotless lingerie blouses, the collarsof which lie limply ever the shoulders, hats of. marked simplicity and good line, whether large or small, and here (writes "The Times" Fashion Correspondent) the small hat is holding its own with remarkable tenacity. Small Hats. " The small hat suits the short skirts better than the large one, and its possibilities for smartness are inilnitely greater. When one remembers that smartness, ' trimness, a touch of mepbistophelian recklessness are the'things to in modern dress, this fact about the small hat is worth considering. A brimless atom of •oarse shiny straw with two thin, supple quills can look ultra-smart when worn in the right way by the, right iroman; but it can look grotesque when worn in the „ .\roiig way by the wrong woman, and that is where the i'ashions of to-day are so tantalising. Perhaps the fashions of other days were just as teasing, but the annoyance of the hour is always the greatest. Another small hat which looks well is a paper boat shape with a squash crown in dark blue or black straw and liberty, trimmed with a band of plumage and one upstanding: strand. It must be worn on the head with a certain neat daring, and the hair on the left side should wave in the same line as the hat. On days when the weather allows a net veil with a coarse mesh and a wide 'scroll pattern may be worn with it. If a big hat is worn it must be specially made for the wearer, or its proportions are'almost sure to be wrong according to the. stem <iiticism of the Rue dc la Paix milliner. I heard of one who asked 200 francs for a small straw shape with no trimming but a quill which might have cost her three francs, and when the woman who was buying it asked her how she had the courage to ask* such a price she said quite calmly:—"Madame, it is for the shape. There is not another like it in Paris." And here you have a hint of what we are coming to. We shall not be asked to pay for a thing because it is beautiful or costly in itself, but because it is unique. The Wear of the Season. We have always loved white raiment beyond all other things, and artists, poets, writers of romance have loved to clothe their heroines in white from the time when writers began to write and painters to paint. Perhaps the painters-have not always got their values'* right, and the writers have talked a great deal of nonsense about " simple muslins," just as women themselves have made plenty of mistakes in the wear-" iug- of white in real life. We. cannot all wear the white of "Miss Alexander," and Whistler would have been the first to tell us so; neither ean we all dress in the spotted muslin and corals of Becky Sharp; but there | are very few of ns .who cannot dress in white of some sort, and this" summer women have been proving it. 1 White is the wear of the season, and according to our point of view we are glad or sorry. She ox the full jmrse may rejoice, but she of the empty one may weep; for white is so very expensive. It need not be elaborate, but it must be spotless, and for that reason alone it is not for the woman who must be very economical. Apparently, however, very few women need to practise that detestable virtue for every one is wearing white and all the white is spotless.- In some cases it is also elaborate, and what looks like simplicity at a first glimpse is proved to be the rever-se at a second. At quite a simple party girls and young women walk about in white satin and Honiton lace just like brides, and in the morning, for tennis, the simple little crepon frock with its suggestion of embroidery can be safely durmised to have cost from £l2 to £l6. As to those wonderful dresses in ninon and net, embroidery and lace, trembles to think what they cost. But still more awe-inspiring is their fragility. The slightest rent, the faintest mark, will mean the aid of a profes- ' sional lace mender or a cleaner, and either represents an important sum of money. Yet it must not be forgotten that lace menders and cleaners live by such extravagances, and so long as their bills are paid we need not exclaim against the wearing of white, however expensive and fragile.