WELL-DRESSED WOMEN.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18286, 8 June 1929, Page 10

WELL-DRESSED WOMEN.

STUDY YOUR DEFECTS. "I think the well-dressed woman is the one who is dressed to suit the occasion, and who knows her type and cultivates it,” states a writer in an English newspaper. The French woman is well dressed because she is always complete from her head'to her toe, and, because every detail of her toilette is thought out beforehand. No woman is well dressed who follows the dictates of fashion blindly, regardless whether the style is becoming to her personally. An uneven hem does not suit everybody. The short woman who is inclined to rotundity does not look her best in one of the backless evening dresses, and the severe woman is at her worst' in frills. We are continually being told that femininity is returning to favour. The fact is, if a woman is feminine-looking, she should always dress to suit her femininity, and should emphasise it in every way. The woman who wishes to be considered well dressed should make a study of anatomy, and of lines in relation to the contour of the human figure. This advice is of equal importance to the slim woman and the woman with curves, since if the slim woman lets her lines appear in the wrong places she will achieve a scraggy silhouette which will be far from becoming. It is important also to study colour. Maize may be a fashionable shade, but the sallow-faced woman will look dowdy in it all the because it will war with her complexion. No woman is well dressed who wears a sports suit when the occasion requires a satin ensemble, or vice-versa. Nor is the woman well dressed who goes to an intimate party wearing the latest model dance dress from Paris, because it happened to have come back that day from the dressmaker, and she wanted badly to see what she looked like in it. I always think;it is pathetic to see fat women wearing bulky-looking garments. They will often go wrong even in their furs by selecting mink, or some long-haired fur of that description, instead of a smooth, short-haired variety, winch would tone down their lines. The woman who is at all inclined to be fat should never draw undue attention to her figure by wearing a trimmed dress, but should choose the plainest she can find. One of the secrets of good dressing is to look for one’s defects. A woman of my acquaintance, who is by no means slender, always looks well dressed because she has made a point of studying her defects instead of looking only for her best points. She knows she has a double chin and that no amount of face massage will remove it altogether. She is aware that her waist line has vanished. In fact, she realises all her shortcomings, and sets out with the preconceived idea of doing her best to minimise them. With this object in mind she never wears bright colours because she knows they would emphasise her figure, so she keeps to soft greys and beige, and neutral shades and black, and makes a point of having everything well tailored and the lines accentuated in order to give herself the illusion of height. The final result, however, amply justiflles all the pains and forethought she expends, because not only her friends but even casual acquaintances invariably refer to her as “a welldressed woman,”