Fashions Up-to-date.

Observer, Volume XXXV, Issue 48, 7 August 1915, Page 21

Fashions Up-to-date.

By Mxra.

WITH the navy blue coats and skirts, plaid silk shirts will be a good deal worn during the early spring. A great many have the old-fashioned yoke, and the high collar meeting in front. But the favourite model is still cut with the Raglan sleeve, the turned-back revers, and the turned-orer collar just at the back of the neck. All sorte of fancy plaid) silks are being sold for these shirts, as well as the real tartan patterns.

Hats are getting smaller and smaller, and we are wondering into what follies fashion will lead lie. The large hat may have grown ridiculous but it did serve the purpose of sheltering both face and neck; but the very tiny models which will surmount our waved) tresses in the immediate future cannot pretend to this raison d'etre.

One of the latest fads in millinery is to have what I must call obviously artificial flowers, that i&, flowers that bear no resemblance at all to nature. Wonderful blossoms in jade green are wreathed! round navy and nigger brown straws, and although a man may say, "Did you ever see a flower like that?" —is a man's opinion about hats worth having?— the effect from our point of view is undoubtedly smart. Many of the newest flowers are made in tinsel and beads, while chenille is also playing it® part. Bunches of variegated flowers are to foe seen, on every hat, andi it seems as though we cannot have too many colours on our heads nowadays.

Fashion hae decreed that we shall wear very short skirts, and so the rather ugly gap between, the hem and the top of the shoe shall not be noticed, very high boots are to be worn. Most of these new boots are laced up down one side. Although the boot trade apparently gain® by this fashion, I anr wondering how the stocking trade will fare, for practically nothing of the stocking can possibly show. Last year everyone wore thin silk open-work, andi the stocking was "the thing." Apparently now it will be the boot. Most of these boots, some of which are made with pearly grey or ivory suede tops, are very charming and dadnty, but oh! how expensive they are! * How cam one buy them in war time!

Buttons always will be one of the smartest of dress decorations. And they never really go out of fashion. One season the satin (button reigns supreme, next season it is coloured bone that is all the rage, and so on. And now the button has taken on a military air, though one must digress here to say that military fashions as a whole are no longer correct. We may adopt the military collar or we may adopt the military button, but all else in the way of fashions from the battlefields is taboo. The new smart buttons are of bright brass or bright silver ball design', and when worn on coats are finished with belt buckles to match. Extremely smart are mavy serge gowns with trimmings of black satin and brass ball buttons. A charming navy serge costume is made with a short-waist-ed coat iand skirt, which shows plain panels back and front and fine knife pleatings at each side. Ball buttons of bright silver decorate the coat.

Amongst the most popular ehadee is a new "soldat bleu," which is like the material used in the new uniforms 1 of the French soldiers. It is a greyish-blue mixture, and is very suitable for tailor-madfe suits, made up in military style, with bullet glass buttons for trimming. Combined with the new blue, is a military red, rather a dull shade, but effective.