Children's Modes By Well-Known French Designers

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19036, 3 April 1930, Page 11

Children's Modes By Well-Known French Designers

Models for Tiny Tots Follow the Grown-up Trend JENNY BILLIOQUE I LIKE the things I make for children to he—as far as possible—in feeling with the actual mode. Therefore, just at present, I am cutting my little dresses with slightly shaped skirts. For the little ones, from 2 to 6, I use very few belts, but rather yokes, from which fall gently flaring skirts. < An example of this is shown in tne first wee frock sketched. The third sketched will show that I like the . slightly shaped skirt for older girls , also. While I love to make children look dainty and charming I must not lose sight of the fact that their dresses must also be practical and suitable for school or play. The trimmings I use are mostly in-

crustations or insets in opposing shades—very soft shades suitable to delicate young skins are favored. They include, blue, green and beige

or yellow, browns and blue. Excedingly often X make dress, coat and hat or bonnet to match. Delightful are some of the dresses in fairly heavy linen with incrusted or inset patterns in a contrasting shade. The trims, being quite flat, facilitates to a large degree the question of laundering and pressing. Wee boys’ suits I often design to match sister’s dresses. The result is charming, as you will note in the first two models illustrated. For the little girls there are often fascinating sunbonnets of linen with patterns like those of the dress. I use much shantung—which launders admirably—crepe de chine and crepe satin for parties or weddings. While I shall employ much blue and red this spring, I always favor white for smart wear. It is so fresh and generally becoming to children. For ages from 6 to 12 I am making many sports ensembles in amusing printed materials re-embroidered over the designs. They often have collar and bow in plain ochre linen. I like tweed skirts pleated on one side and pullovers knitted in patterns resembling tweed. I use also Rodier’s linen jersey. Little coats in soft wool are often slightly shaped and trimmed with self or contrasting insets. Some have scarf collars.

FOR very chic dresses, £ like marquisette, chiffon or heavy tulle, but my favorites are satin and moire. Some of the fluffy models are trimmed w r ith frills. Others in satin or moire may also have little chiffon frills outlining scallops, etc. This type of dress I am making half long, that is to say, a hand’s length below the knee, but others are long all round. (See third sketch.) For bridesmaids t love dresses sleeveless and with round necklines worn with tight-fitting silver lace bonnets. A darling little purse (see detail sketch) is added to this costume. It looks like a wee bouquet of silver flowers, but opens in the center as a purse. As for hats, I am making them semi-large, often in straw inlaid with felt. For juniors, however, I shall also try to make bonnet-shaped hats. MR. BLUME Director of Fairyland, Says I AM making longer skirts for children and the waistline is higher.' From 3 years to 9 years I think the Empire style without belt is charming. For the tiny baby there is nothing I prefer to fine white linen trimmed with openwork embroidery, tulle or Valenciennes lace. Wee bonnets and coats are of crepe de chine, often trimmed with honeycomb em-

broidery. Sometimes the bonnets have little inlaid pieces of felt. Adorable little boots are in the sofest pink or blue kid. For 2-year--olds there are charming little pullovers of angora wool —to be slipped over linen or other dresses. There are also ensembles or “sets” in two soft shades of angora. Sport and school dresses I do in jersey or bouclette de laine (a slightly curly jersey)—some with, patent leather belts and round collar and cuffs. Many of my Empire dresses I make in taffetas trimmed with white frills, soft silks, chiffons and brocades—the last usually for bridesmaids. To go with this there is often a bonnet in various soft shades of ribbon, lattice worked. I insist on beautifully worked lingerie collars and cuffs for the majority of styles suited to such accessories. My coats are a little shaped and are trimmed with insets. Hats and little bags are to match. Straw hats for spring and summer I shall make like enormous “capelines” with a deep brim at the back, of the smaller ones will be in pleated grosgrain ribbon. I am using much red, yellow and blue. MIGNAPOUF Likes LITTLE sleeveless dresses with soft Marie Antoinette fichus falling

over the shoulders and tucking witb the belt. Many pleated frills in soft materials, insets of crepe satin or georgette for party dresses, square yokes, very soft colorings, large hats, sleeveless pullovers of printed jersey over plain jersey pleated skirts. Copyright by Publio hedger

and literature. Most certainly Shakespeare was a shoe maker. He could not possibly have omitted that lustrous profession, in the hundred and one vocations which penetrating scholars have ascribed to him. So the shoe maker of to-day has an impressive tradition to live up to, and the history of his craft is one of absorbing interest. It was in Egypt, historians tell us, that the craft was bom. For the ancient Egyptians sought to protect their feet against the burning pavements in their cities and the red hot sand of the desert, and so they invented the “Tab-teb,” a strip of plaited papyrus or hide which was laced into position with leathern thongs. This first shoe was a very clumsy and unbecoming affair, and it was used simply as a protection for the feet. But soon the beautiful young Egyptian girls came to realise the latent possibilities even in this crude form of foot gear, and they beguiled their craftsmen into fashioning for them exquisite tab-tebs, gilded or brilliantly coloured with pigments. And henceforth no self-respecting/Egyptian maiden would venture out into the street unshod. Her dainty little sandals she deemed as indispensable as her cosmetics; they lent her confidence, and constituted one of the chief weapons in her armory.

Soon these sandals came to attain no little significance in the social life ol the people. For instance, when a Hebrew died his brother was expected to marry his widow, and if he was reluctant to do so, the woman, in the presence of the elders of the tribe, might tear off h *s shoes —to be seen without one’s sandals was deemed vastly undignified—and then proceed to revile him to her heart’s content. The only son in the family was therefore in a very enviable position, though certainly another Jess fortunately placed could sometimes sell his shoe”—that is, pass on his responsibility, and his brother’s widow, to his next of kin. . Moreover, the Egyptian hit upon a subtle method of using his shoe as a weapon to wreak vengeance on his enemy. He would paint a figure -representing the latter on the sole of h«3 sandal, and thereafter every time he took a step he could gloat on the fact that he was grinding his enemy's face into the ground. It -was not long before the Egyptian shoe makers, sensing the power which their craft gave them, formed themselves into companies, but it was m Greece that they achieved greatest independence and power. In Athens, for example, the tanners, shoe makers and cobblers formed separate and highly exclusive communities in the city. In Rome, too, they were constituted a vastly important section of society, arul it was the Roman craftsmen who taught the Britons the rudiments of the trade, and in place of the shoes roughly fashioned from cow hide gave them dashing ankle boots of fine purple leather. The history of the craft in England is strangely interwoven with superstition and romance. For instance, there is the story of the good rector of North Marston, who early in the fourteenth century placed the whole world in his debt by enticing the devil into a shoe of his own making. Sir John Shorn, A gentleman born. Conjured the devil into a boot. Sir John was regarded more or less a? a saint thereafter, but unfortunatelv after death he could retain no power over his satanic majesty, who promptly escaped from his boot. All sorts of quaint customs are associated with the. wearing of the shoes. For instance, there is the superstition that “he who puts six leaves of the mugwort into his shoe shall never be weary, even though he walk thirty or forty

miles in an afternoon,” whereas a fern seed in the boot will lead the wearer to hidden treasure. A clover leaf set in a maiden’s shoe ensures that the first man she meets is to be her future husband. And in Scotland there is a belief that unless one burns a pair of old shoes, the elves will entice the prettygirls away to their caves under the se-t. Some of these old superstitions have survived even to this day; for instance, that of throwing old shoes after a bride and groom to bring them luck.