SKIRTS WILL BE SHORTER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLI, Issue 20308, 6 January 1936, Page 12

SKIRTS WILL BE SHORTER

The mid-season dress collections, crowded with American and European buyers eager to see which way the wind of fashion is likely to blow in 1936, have just opened here with something of a bombshell, says a London writer.

Refusing to believe that women want to return to Victorian curves or to long skirts and elaborate draperies, one of the most important houses has introduced: A skirt shorter even than last season;

youthful-looking dresses which demand girlish figures; a new kind of off-the-face cap which, apparently inspired by the Mary Queen of Scots coif, is worn at the back of the head. If these clothes are adopted by women, they will have to face the fact that their silhouette will undergo another radical change.

The little dresses and coats with sleek-fitting shoulder yokes, trim pleats from shoulder to waist, and full sleeves caught into a band at the wrist, have nothing in common with the important-looking fur-trimmed coats and draped gowns of the last collections. In fact, they are a deliberate challenge to such grandeur. This school of thought has some of the milliners with it. Many of Suzanne Calvot’s new hats, for stance, show a peasant influence which blends very well with these youthful fashions.

They are made bonnet fashion, with a crown standing away from the head at the back, and draped with extraordinary veils made of wide-meshed woollen thread, which looks like fishing net.

These veils can be tied beneath the chin with ribbons or worn flowing over the shoulders or merely draping the forehead. Probably the most practical of these woollen veils is one which fits over the shoulders and the head in a kind of hooded cape—this is for travelling and cruising wear—and the hat is worn over it.