FOREIGN FARM FASHIONS
Astonish Dominion Women Success of London Conference (Special—By Air Mall) LONDON, June 3. Women from New Zealand, Rhodesia and South Africa attending the third triennial conference in London this week declared that not the least attractive feature of the meeting, which is proving a huge success, was the array of elaborate and colourful costumes worn by some of the delegates. The Latvian representatives aroused the greatest interest with their gay scarlet skirt, white blouse, black embroidered waistcoat and jewelled “crown.” In a costume which is more than a hundred years old, but which is still a la mode in Latvia was Frau Olga Kulitans. “We hand our costumes down from mother to daughter," she said. “They are made of such superb material that they do not wear out. Of course, we have to renew the linen blouses.” There are more than four yards of material in the long pleated skirt—and it costs nearly £3. The blouses cost 25/-. Around her waist Frau Kulitans wears a girdle three yards’ long. “It is hand woven from 25 different threads and lasts almost for ever,” she said. But the most important parts of the Latvian dress is the shawl, a magnificent affair with heavy handworked embroidery. “They often take three years to complete,” said Frau Kulitans. “They are the most valuable articles in a Latvian woman's wardrobe." Wearing German national costume was the Baroness Roedern, who, with her daughter, manages a great northern forest. She chops trees, and sells the pine for making tweed. A Danish farmer’s wife “smuggled” her elderly husband into the conference because she could not bear to be parted from him. There was no official challenge. “A husband and wife are not two people. They are one,” she said. She was Mrs Rebekka la Cour-Madsen, president of the Danish Farmwives’ Association. Her tall farmer Hisband puffed at his cigar and said: “Yes, that is why I am here.” While the happy inseparable couple smiled at each other, 699 other delegates to the Triennial Conference of the Associated Countrywomen of the World looked at the pair with open envy. Scores of them had shoo-ed their husbands off the steps of the Central Hall, Westminster, where the conference took place.
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Bibliographic details
Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21377, 21 June 1939, Page 10
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372FOREIGN FARM FASHIONS Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21377, 21 June 1939, Page 10
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