LEADERS OF FASHIONS.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12463, 12 February 1909, Page 1

LEADERS OF FASHIONS.

Paris fashions have run in .curious directions of late. Many progressive ' women, chiefly those who follow letters for a living, may he seen in the Paris streets wearing trousers. Thero is Mmc Dieulafoyj who adopted masculine dress for its convenience when accompanying her husband on his archaeological travels, and has retained it ever since. Then there is Mmc de Montifaut, who ia a familiar figure in the newspaper world of Paris, with her bowler hat and; short box-coat, below which appears tho tails of an under-coat. Many women affect tho styles of by-gone days. A Paris journal states that Mmc Maeterlinck sometimes wears a Louis XVI. costume, a gown of flowered silk, with pointed bodice and panniers. Mmc Maeterlinck is as a rule, however, a convert to the "Byzantine" style, whatever that may be. The wife of Edmond Rostand is another of tho "Byzantines," and two other authoresses. Baronne Dcslandes, and tho Comtesso de Noaillcs. are also fond of Eastern fashion. We read of another well-known woman writer, however, Mmc Colette Wiely, who retains the simple style of her . schooldays. She wears "a loose-jacket suit, which seems to mean a boy's tweed coat and a rather short tweed skirt. These departures from the established modes occasion no surprise in the Paris streets, because, although they are supposed to set the fashion, the Parisian women are nothing if not J independent.