TME LADIES COLUMN EDITED BY

Observer, Volume 2, Issue 27, 19 March 1881, Page 7

TME LADIES COLUMN EDITED BY

— The popularity of pompadour is on the wane. — Hoods on ulsters seem to be lined with the most glaring and ridiculous colours obtainable. — The chenille and tinsel bands for the neck now worn are " old friends come back again." — Dresses in the latest fashion plates appear to be plainer and less gaudy than than they have been. — Popular shades for winter wear Avill be prune, Avine, and oli\ r e green. — All other fringes save chenille appear to be going out of fashion. — Mrs. C.'s black mantle, Avith trimmings of chenille fringe, deserves mention. — Little Miss McL n has got a very nice new dress of crane cashmere with cardinal silk trimmings and honeycombed front. — Mrs. Mackeehnie Avas at church last Sunday in a stylish crane surah, trimmed Avith satin pompadour, the bonnet being of crane. — Those avlio have not already purchased a "cock's feather bonnet" had better buy one at once. — Miss T., of Newton, looks really charming in a Avell-made costume of naA T y blue. It is a colour that suits some people admirably.

— Have your ulsters made short, ladies ; or else I shall not be able to criticise your new costumes. — Miss S., a suburban belle, spent a long time in Queen-street the day. She wore her new cremc sateen dress, with heliotrope sash. Both the lady and the dress were admired. — Ladies of Auckland are informed that Miss Delany, late forewoman to Mr. W. Rattray, has commenced business as dress and mantle maker. — The lady wearing that hideous black and white grenadine, daubed with patches of white lace, ought to sue her dressmaker for injuring her personal appearance. — Miss I. sports a rather novel costume of black cashmere, ornamented with a broad tartan sash. Her pretty little bronze boots are also noticeable. — Shop girls who want to show off their figures are advised to invest in a black and white — piebald — "make up," like Miss C.'s for instance. — Who were the two young ladies meandering about the Shelly Beach rocks last Sunday in glaring yellow dresses, besprinkled with patches of blue ? — It is not much use young ladies, or old women either, proposing to "go for 'Eva'" because something I say does not please them. "Eva" is just six feet in her stocking soles, and measures twenty -nine inche* around the waist. — Mrs. Somebody (she seems to be or wants to be somebody) has just come out gorgeously arrayed in a striped green silk, trimmed with plain green, wide sleeves fastened at the wrist, and a skirt about five yards wide.

—Two very handsome costumes came under my notice whilst strolling past John Smith's drapery establishment last Thursday. One lady wore a costly creme brocade, trimmed with plain creme silk, a la princess, with kiltmgs also of silk, and her companion appeared to great advantage in a black satin pompadour, trimmed with black silk. — Miss L.'s creme and pink dress is well worth notice. It consists of a pink kilted skirt and a creme polonaise, laced with pink, the sleeves being also laced with pink. The whole is set off with a rink hat, with creme feather and pink bow. —I must congratulate Mrs. H on her black silk. It is one of the best made dresses of the season. The trimmings consist of folds across the front and kiltings round the skirt and the effect is heightened by a creme surah bonnet. — The latest novelty in New York is a dress album. A piece of every new dress is carefully cut, and gummed on one side of a leaf, and the date attached. Thus it forms a complete history of a lady's dress from season to season. This practice has at least one thing in its favour —however extravagant a lady may be, she will eventually have something to show for it. —A snake bracelet, worn above the elbow, in gold, with a sprig' of natural roses between its teeth, was the object of much comment recently was the object of much comment recently iii Paris. Silver ornaments are still in voge, and a charming novelty for the hair is composed of a bird with sparkling silver plumage. Each feather glitters with every turn of the head, and the effect is compared to stalactites under an electric light.

— In a prosecution for dog stealing heard a ■ the Middlesex Session, a lady stated that she had had dogs stolen ten times, and for their recovery had paid upwards of £100. One favourite pug had been stolen three times, and each time she had paid £25 for its recovery. — The wife of William Morris, the poet, can give pokits to Mrs. Langtry and the rest of the professional beauties, if a correspondent of the Inter-Ocean is to be trusted: "She is a mysterious, Egyptian-looking woman, with great sad eyes, and Oriental complexion, burning scarlet iips, and the expression of ineffable remoteness and vagueness that one in imaginai tion gives to the sphynx ; The young lady's face was just one of the inexpressibly melancholy ones that the pre-Raphaelites adore — just the type of young women coming down the ' golden stairs ' in Burne Jones' picture at the Grosvenor Gallery this year — and Morris married her. Not long ago this lady wore at an evening party a robe of the sheeniest, filmiest white muslin, fine enough to be drawn through a ring. The petticoat under it must have been the same for the folds of her robe clung to her body as if cut by the finest chisel. At the waist this thin robe was confined by a long supple chain in the form of a serpent, which, after writhing around her body, dropped its jewelled head by her left side, where its diamond eyes glittered and burned like fire. Egyptian bracelets and necklace adorned her arms and neck, and an Egyptian masque gathered and held tho folds of the robe at the throat. Her black hair was one thick mass of short curls, and lay close down to her eyes, crept in and out by another golden serpent, with jewelled^ scales and b\irning eyes. One would have said she was a Cleopatra, who had turned her asps into gold and jewels, and come to life to dazzle a barbarian world."