Fashions and Furbelows

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17349, 14 May 1924, Page 9

Fashions and Furbelows

Nates Ay Special Contributors

FALUNG OFF A PEDESTAL.

The other day I was talking over a new engagement with some intimate friends of the bride-to-be. “ There’s one thing certain,” I said. “ Dick’s simply .devoted to her.” ** Yes,” said one of the other*. “ But the question is—does Dick really know Betty as she is? It’s easv to be sweetly reasonable all the time when you are out and enjoy yourself. But we all know perfectly well that* isn’t the ordinary, everyday Betty. She’s a dear little soul, but nobody can help having best moods and ordinary moods.” ”Of course they can’t—but - Dick knows that, I suppose, as well as. we all do.” And he’s seen Betty in her own home, as well as when she’s out for gaiety.” “ Yes, but have you seen them together? I have, and honestly Betty’s always a different creature from her

ordinary self. You can see her family watching her with amazement' when Dick’s on the scene! I don’t mean she poses for his benefit! But the fact remains that I’m positive he never has seen her as she is when there’s nothing special to : look forward to and life’s fairly dull. I’m afraid he’ll get a shock later, and she’ll | fall off the pedestal he’s put her on ’’ j There are always gloomy well-mean-ing friends who prophesy disillusion I at a speedy rate, because ”he hasn’t j seen her as her own people have.” I But it may be her family who have not seen her as she really is. The best parts Of a girl’s nature may bo stifled among her own people; perhaps they- adopt a tone of criticism of her doings, which she naturally resents cnce she’s grown-up—or perhaps they take for granted all the nice things

she does for them, and so discourage the extra ones she might do! Or she may have her individuality cramped in a large circle. For many reasons, her sweet moods, evanescent in her mother’s home, may get a chance to be constant in her own home. So the nicer Betty may be the natural one ! DOROTHY PENROSE.

HEIRLOOMS.

If -you know the joy of possessing 9omo beautiful work of art handed down by an ancestress of and discrimination, you have a duty to perform to the next generation. You must encourage, jn your turn, the artist and craftswoman of your own time, so that you may have heirlooms to hand down to those who come ■after.

There are women in plenty who are doing beautiful work in jewellery, embroidery, and many another craft, and it is up to us, their contemporaries, to encourage their work. v One wonian metal-worker boldly expresses this point of view in assuming the title of “A Maker of Heirlooms,” thus calling attention to an aspect of buying too often neglected. She works, she declares, not alone for this generation, but for those to come, and conscientiously puts into her work the pride of eraftsriianship and pleasure in execution which shall give it an abiding value. Her enamels desOrve recognition, not alone for their intrinsic loveliness, but for the record they form of twentieth century aesthetics.

There are women bookbinders ajid women potters, women glass-designers and women weavers who are turning out work which is fit to rank with the most wonderful heirlooms of past generations. In arranging the annual expenditure, why not allocate at least some small portion to the acquisition of something to “ hand down”?

COLOURED CANDLES.

The up-to-date dining table is lit by immense twenty-four-hour church candles of brownish beeswax, set into the new candle-blocks of wood, painted with gaily ooloured flowers upon n black ground. On an table of plain oak, set with bowls of emerald glass, these unusual candle arrangements prove immensely effective, giving a full and steady light and adding a touch of welcome colour

“ HIGHBROW ” LAMPS. Lamps of decorated tin are being sold by the “ Highbrow ” furnishing firms as a protest against the idea that this metal does not comes within the artistic category. The lamps are in caddy-shape and the electric bulb is shaded beneath a parchment circlet, painted to match the somewhat jazzy design of the base.