MAYFAIR JOTTINGS

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 934, 2 December 1933, Page 24 (Supplement)

MAYFAIR JOTTINGS

Hairdressers Predict Longer Tresses. HEAT WAVE FASHIONS. (From Our London Lady Correspondent.) West End hairdressers are once more predicting, though with more caution than before, a return to longer-hair fashions for women. They assert that the Eton crop and shingle are now practically obsolete, and where worn are merely eccentricities. But women are feeling their way quietly, allowing their locks to grow a little longer, and curling them in the nape of the neck to conceal this tendency. Another item of fashionable hairdressing news is that the platinum blonde, whom gentlemen are deemed much to prefer, has out-stayed lier fashion welcome, and is no longer right in the van of the coiffure movement. New York and Paris have dropped her, and London is following suit. To cope with the longer hair, hats are now being made slightly larger. This may be good news for many women, but it is really a little sad about the platinum blondes. MRS. GRUNDY UP TO DATE. Presumably there are still some Victorian survivors among us. If so, and the London heat wave impels them to week-end by the sea, they must surely get a shock or two. But they will .be more or less prepared for the gay brevity of the modern bathing costumes on the beach by their experiences before they leave town. At Victoria Station, where they must catch the Brighton electric expresses, they are sure to encounter well-developed ladies already dressed for the golden sands. Try to imagine wliat would have happened, even 20 years ago, if ladies had appeared on a railway platform, and boarded a train, wearing backless bathing costumes slightly camouflaged by a flimsy skirt? If Mrs. Grundy is not dead, she must be sunbasking by the sea, heavily lip-eticked and in an Eton crop and backless beach suit. DIANA OF THE CHASE. Miss Diana Guest will have achieved one of the ambitions of her life in the luck that has befallen her as a big game huntress. With her father, the Hon. “Freddie” Guest, she loves nothing better than to rush away from the social crush of London to their bungalow out in Kenya. Domesticated though she. is, Miss Guest is ready to rough it with the best of them when on safari. Last year she shot her biggest lion, and now comes the news that three fine tuskers have fallen to her father and herself. Miss Guest, I believe, has never qualified for a pilot’s certificate, but she is a very keen flying woman and travels hiige distances by ’plane. Although she is essentially an open-air girl, she shines brilliantly in the drawing room, pos-, scssing among other things an exceptionally fine voice.

HEAT WAVE DRESS. It is interesting to notice how much more readily women accommodate themselves to the heat wave conditions than do members of the opposite sex. I saw one girl, obviously just back from the seaside, strolling clown Regent Street wearing one of the backless frocks, which have been so popular on the beach. On the other hand, men, for the most part, are still wearing heavy tweeds. Their excuse in the past has always been that as soon as they equip themselves with flannels or with suits of white drill, the weather breaks up, and there is a return to something like Arctic conditions. The bottom lias been knocked out of this plea this summer—surely the most marvellous summer we have known for years. It is in the slums that the dress reform movement has been carried to its utmost limits. A pair of bathing slips 16 the favourite attire of the children, and their little bodies arc tanned to a healthy brown. WHERE IT PAYS TO BE PLUMP. One remarkable feature of these Channel swimmers is that nearly all of them are plump. Long-distance swimming is a certain means of putting on weight, if the subject is healthy, and for this realson swimming is prohibited even as a casual sport for athletes who are going in seriously for walking races. Nearly all the women long-distance swimmers are noticeably plump. The little lady who has just swum across from Boulogne to Dover would appear from her photographs to be no exception of this rule. She is only 22 years of age, her height is just sft 3in, which is short even for a woman, and yet her weight is given as 13st. Women are usually plumper than men, and for that very reason even the average holiday bathing girl can stay in the sea longer than most LIDO REDISCOVERED. The Lido is no longer the fashion resort it used to be, but I am told it is really surprising what a large number of quite well-known people still continue to assemble there for their summer holiday. No doubt its wonderful position is responsible for this. When fashion ceases to lead, moreover, trippers very speedily desert a place that has ceased to be “it.” This is very much what is happening at the Lido. Much of the garishness and blatancy that have distinguished the place during the last few years is beginning to disappear and quite well-known people have “discovered” it once more as the place de luxe for sun bathing. The feature of the season this summer has been the number of white bathing dresses to be seen on the beach. Nearly everyone is wearing them. If they are not white they are usually black and white. Even' the beach pyjamas are less vivid than usual. RESTAURANT MYSTERY. The little blue trout we get at the restaurants h ve alwavs been something of a mystery to me; but I hope the explanation vouchsafed to me by my waiter is not true. He explained that the peculiar colour was achieved by placing the fish in vinegar. If this is really true, few diners-out, I imagine, would approve. Personally, I have always disliked the practice of bringing live fish into a restaurant for guests to make their choice of those which are to be popped into the frying pan or on to the grill. It savours too much of the practice still common in some parts of Egypt of bring a live calf round for potential customers to mark off the particular joint they want to buy. It is only necessary fer a few strong-minded people to register an emphatic protest in order to persuade the restaurants that though the exhibition of live fish may appeal 1o a few, the majority of us strongly resent it.

Oignons Farcies a la Bollenhese. Poach six big onions—cut out the bottom to allow the inside to come out easily—in some milk thickened with bread crumbs. When the insides are soft, remove carefully from the outer layers. Sait and spice the yolks of two eggs, and mix well with some of the soaked bread crumbs. Fold into this stuffing the well-beaten whites of two eggs, refill the onions with the mixture, baste with butter and brown in the oven for 15 minutes. Salade Japonaise. For salade Japonaise, take some crisp lettuce, sliced tomatoes, bananas and some pineapple. A dressing made with cream, to which has been added the squeeze of a lemon and the smallest pinch of cayenne pepper, is the correct accompaniment, Croquettes de Mais. Take a tin of maize and dry it thoroughly. To this add some bechamel sauce. Thicken it further with two yolks of eggs, and stir well until every particle of moisture has evaporated and it is a thick mixture. When cold, mould into croquettes, egg and bread crumb, and fry in fat. “Gnochi au Gratin.” Prepare a jaate a choux—the same recipe as for Aubergines Milanaises. When the paste is ready, combine it with about four ounces of parmesan. Cut the paste into pieces the size of walnuts and poach them in boiling salted water. When they rise to the surface take them out and drain them on linen. Coat a gratin dish with Moray sauce—this has the same foundation as bechamel sauce to which has been added the essence of fish or poultry in the proportion of a quarter pint to one pint of the bechamel, then add 2oz of parmesan and 2oz of gruvere and 2oz of butter, by degrees. Place the gnochi on the sauce. Cover with more sauce, scatter grated cheese and put some melted butter over them, and cook in a moderate oven from 15 to 20 minutes, to allow the gratin to form. Filets of Sole Brillat Savarin. Folded filets of sole are stuffed with a mousseline of 6inelts, seasoned with salt and pepper and cooked in fish stock. Dress it, crown-shape, on a special fish platter. Cover it with a sauce of melted butter, bake it under salamandre, garnish the interior of the crown with oysters, with crayfish, and with truffled siices between the sole and oysters. Salad Alma. Hearts of romaine lettuce arc split in two and dressed on individual small plates. * On these, quarters of grapefruit, divided by filets of red pepper. Serve with French dressing.

rouge so sparingly that she is never suspected. Jler faint colour comes from a known chemist, not from the unknown alchemist. A transformation for the ugly duckling! Sleight of hand will transform her into a beautiful Many women of forty begin to fade and lose the bloom of youth. By the time a woman is forty, she has cither tasted or drank deeply of life's cup of worries. A slight wanness is likely to show on her face. Wouldn’t a faint glow on her cheeks be a psychological stimulus? Outward radiance would not fail to induce her to act the part. “Ah, yes,” the world would say, “Mrs. X. is still young enough to fascinate and old enough to bo mellowed by experience.” Can there be a defence for Mrs. Threescore, who tries to beautify herself? Thirty years ago she taught her ten-year-old daughter the Bible story of the painted Jezebel, but, profiting by the free advertisement that the notorious hussy has, for many generations, beeii the subject, our dame of sixty strives to haw her own colour accepted as natural. Experience has left its imprint on the face of the marionette of fate. If her natural rosiness has lasted until now, she may consider herself lucky indeed. Not many women of her age can boast of natural roses blooming under their very eyes. The Synthetic Blush. Now for a synthetic blush! How easy to pat it lovingly and carefully on the cheeks! From this action, the numbers of the family rightly infer that their dear ones still desire to be charming, and that she continues to worship at the shrine of appearance. Of course, all are tactful enough to avoid commenting on the sham. Credit is due to her for presenting herself at the best advantage. In applying rouge, one sails under false colours, to be sure, but wherein does this differ from the pardonable performance of daubing powder on the nose, and chin—a white lie, as it were? Tradition is our justification. Didn’t the early Indians adorn their skin and abhor a pale face? At no age and under no circumstance should one be censured for trying to make up for apparent shortcomings. Rouge itself is a luxury that is necessary. The use of it is not to be condemned, the abuse of it is warned against and decried. The only vice in rouging is the smearing, the injudicious smearing, which would hardly deceive a blind man. Keep people guessing. Strengthen their notion that nothing is more complex than woman's complexion. Let the warning go forth that all users of

fat people undergo a far greater strain than thin ones, that every motion burns up more tissue on account of their bulk, and that the depletion of the iron in the blood means depletion of vitality, which must be restored by good food, along with remedies that to starve is only to make matters worse. Stoutness resulting from illness or accident is not at all a matter for starvation. A friend of mine, who is elderly, stopped eating butter, the first of the fats that we dispense with, and the one we need the most, on account of its large content of vitamin A, which is the most necessary to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” especially for the old and the young. She became low-spirited and ill, and her loss of weight was not becoming or healthy. Another friend did without the quantity of starches, potatoes, cereals and bread to which she was accustomed. She lost a lot of weight, but in a few weeks was seriously ill with heart weakness. Fat children, improperly dieted, get rickets, and are lucky if ever they become normal. The Benefits of Massage. The benefits of the massage method, if tried, depend entirely upon the reaction of the person. Reducing creams, properly compounded, are not harmful, and reduce certain parts of the body at will. But it is necessary to make sure that that part of the body is not in need of the fat, and will not shed it too fast. Then there is the daily dozen, a healthful matter under most circumstances, but altogether wrong under certain others, if not chosen and directed intelligently. Housework and stair climbing sometimes fatten the seeker after slimness, instead of slimming her, and make her too tired to try anything else. Violent exercise causes swift circulation, and more or less extreme activity of the heart, which at any costs lias to deliver the goods. In cases of anaemia, the vitality is much depleted after exercise, so that dangerous consequences follow. Find out, then, if your increased weight is normal for your type and age, and if it is, let it be. Meanwhile, massage, reducing cream, sensible allround diet and exercise, neither violent nor excessive, will do you no harm.