INCREASED POPULARITY.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18849, 11 April 1931, Page 16

INCREASED POPULARITY.

PASTEL “HEADS.’* The increased popularity of pastel portraits among women is not surprising, for the delicate tones and halftones of this essentially feminine medium coincide with the return to dainty and feminine modes in dress, and the portraits look so well in their beige wooden frames. Olive Snell, says a writer in a London journal, has done pastel “heads” of nearly all the pretty women in society, eand has just added to her collection the Duchess of Westminster, the Begum Aga Khan and Lady Ashley. Mrs Pike’s recent head of Lady Louis Mountbatten reveals the fact that she is growing her hair again. CHIC IN STOCKINGS. Soft cocoa shades with a touch of golden tone in them are the newest in stilk stockings at the moment. Suntan, a once popular shade, is giving way to deeper colours,, which vary from mushroom to nut-brown. Longer skirts, contrary to most opinions, make the ankle doubly important, and slender clocks, embroidered in contrasting colours, decorate many of the new stockings. Pearl on gun-metal, beige on brown, and fawn on squirrel tones are among the newest, and these clocks run up 86 inches from the base of the heel, notwithstanding the fact that they do not show below the longer skirt. To shorten the clock would spoil the slimming line. The heels slope up and then end in a square top, not the pointed one we have been used to. There is an extra toe-guard provided with some stockings, the reinforced material covering the whole of the toes. Crepe stockings woven with twisted threads are promised to us, and these are very soft and silky. They are elastic, and will stand considerable .strain. Stockings ft>r evening are several shades darker than last year, and gun-metal in a very fine mesh is very popular. Beaver are chosen to be worn with all coloured frocks except black and white. Champagne are the favourites with white frocks, but deep nude may be used for darked eyening frocks if liked. THE QUEEN’S RUBIES. The Queen is greatly interested in the proposed exhibition of rubies to be held in London. These have long been numbered among Her Majesty’s favourite stones, and she possesses some very fine specimens indeed. She is hoping that this exhibition will serve to bring back these stones into fashion. The Queen recalls that the first ring she ever possessed was a simple little one of rubies and diamonds. It was a present from her father when she was quite a girl, and it remains among her most cherished possessions. Rubies, by the way, figure very prominently indeed in the State Crown of this country.