BARE KNEES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17863, 3 June 1926, Page 4

BARE KNEES.

SEVEN OUNCE FROCKS. FASHION SECRETS. (From the London “Evening News.”) Her knees beneath her petticoat, Like little mice, stole in and out A«s i£ they feared the light. Hut oh ! she dances such a way— No sun upon an Easter day Is half so fine a sight! Of course the old poet really said **fect." and not knees. But that was •imply because he didn't live long enough to know anything about the inodes of 1926. We privileged folk, who were allowed inside the closely-guarded Drapery Exhibition which the Lord Mayor opened recently, know better. For at one end of great hall—the climax of a hundred secrets of fashion which were revealed to the favoured few—were some mannequins Wearing the new turned-down stockings. Their knees were bare. We caught glimpses of them as the haughty, girls floated gracefully to and fro. “MARK MY WORD." “Yes,” said the Man in Charge, “that'll be the new fashion -in stockings. Mark my word, you'll see scores of bare knees in London this summer.” Just off the main hall, where a hundred mannequins were floating about in a hundred marvellous frocks, it was being whispered that dresses will be just as short this summer as last. “You can see that for yourself.” said one authority, pointing to some of the frocks. “Preparing for the bare knees?” I asked. “Ah!” cried the Authority., “officially we in this part of the Exhibition don’t know anything about knees. But I’ll tell you this. Women this summer will wear less than ever.” “They can t,” I said. “They can—and will,” he declared. PROOF. And T am able to tell the women of London (who are not allowed inside the Royal Agricultural Hall to find out for themselves) that he is right. I am sure of that because I went round and found out the exact amount of clothe-? that the fashionable woman will wear. Here is the table of weights":— F rocks To z Underclothing 6oz Stockings to* Shoes 16oz Total 30oz This beats last year's record by several ounces. "Our flimsiest stockings weigh, much less than an ounce.” said an expert, lie picked up two wisps of diaphanous silk. “See these? They weigh only a quarter of an ounce and they cost four and a half guineas. You could blow them away with a breath, yet there arc 10 miles of silk in them.” “JUST FASHION.” As for the dresses —well, there was e*ne being worn by a dainty Vnannequin which would only just have turned the scales at three ounces. Let uS hope it is a warm summer. There was quite a little cluster of people round the bathing-dress pavilion. We gazed entranced at the wax maidens, who stood as though petrified in the act of diving into a layer of sand. Probably they had just noticed the absence of water, and had thought better of it. The,. new bathing dress is less daring than last rear. It insists on resembling an ordinary afternoon frock. In fact, a woman could walk down Regent Street in it and not be noticed. “It’s just the fashion.” said the man who designed it. “Take that one over there, for instance. It looks like an ordinary dress, doesn't it, with its little belt and so forth. Yet a woman could wade out to sea in it and not spoil it. QUICK CHANGES. “Of course, we do make thinner ones. I’ve got one which only weighs a couple of ounces and could be put comfortably into a small purse. The most expensive cost 17 guineas.” It was quite an embarrassing experience for a man to walk through the Gibley, Hall. There <vere“ a hundred mannequins gliding about among the rainbow arrays of dresses—slim and plump, dark and fair. “We have all sorts of mannequins now.” said the man who was in .charge of 20 of them. “We have plump ones to show dresses to plump women, thin ones for thin women., and so on. They’re hard workers, too. Perhapt they don't look it when you see them lounging about: but each one of them wears about ISO 1 different dresses in a day—something like £IOOO worth of beautiful frocks. "They're all quick-change artists.” “SUBDUED” STOCKINGS. The fashionable dress colours this year will be shades of rose, blue and pale green. Stockings will have six new colours:—Chartreuse, nacre rose, dollar, nacre violine, Bacchus. Manon. “London won’t see any vivid stock ings.” I was assured. "All the pinks are vanishing in favour of more subdued shades. Personally I think them dull and rather uninteresting: but then that’s the fashion. “A Relieving feature is the diamante garters woven into some of the stockings.” In this women's paradise there are iust a few glimpses of men's clothes. I gathered that men's pull-overs will be brighter. In fact, I saw some so dazzling with their splashes of scarlet and yellow that I positively blinked.