FORTHCOMING FASHIONS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20483, 8 December 1934, Page 34 (Supplement)

FORTHCOMING FASHIONS.

Aim at Subtlety and Individuality. SLEEVES FULL BELOW ELBOWS. (By A PARIS EXPERT.) The early Paris openings are on in full swing. Many of the smaller and some of the great creators have paraded their mannequins across the stage. Fashion has picked the best, but the play has only just begun Not so many years ago the fashions creators aimed to startle their public with extreme changes, great surprises, something that anyone—even a man—could perceive. But to-day, anything so obvious is apt to offend us. We crave subtlety rather than broad effects—something that calls for taste to appreciate and brains to adapt. The mode, therefore, has become more and more an evolution, a welldefined progression, a matter of clever details, cleverly applied. It may be objected that, as the mode changes less, one’s frock from last year will not be demodee; one may, therefore, wear it. On the contrary, one’s frock is demodee upon at least ten counts. The fact that I they are not the sort of things to strike ‘ the uninitiated doesn’t make them less important, but rather more so. The

well-trained, detail-trained eye picks them out at once. The dress one wore last season was all very well —last season. But the dress of this season—ah, that is a thing of infinite cleverness that proclaims its date, its ehie, its complete rightness the moment one sees it. Just what is it, this newest chic? Having added all the openings together, subtracted the too-different, and not-different-enough, divided by the sum of human frailty, and multiplied by the influence of Paris on the feminine mind, Paris will give you the answer. Early Autumn Openings. Fashions in Paris this season are remarkably artistic and individual. Many features that appeared at the early openings have proved to be inharmonious and inartistic, and these have disappeared. And the appeal in the latest fashion is sane, and makes largely for grace and beauty. The new style edict of the fashions makes seductive softness on simple daytime dresses fashionable, and repeals all severity. The “vamp” skirt is one of the rigid and difficult styles to be modified. Pleats and ruffles and godets are recalled and used to relieve the situation of the skirt from its restricted narrowness. Dresses having skirts that are full in front are particularly important items of fashion, because interest is veering sharply to the front all along the dress sihouette. Another part of the dress to get relief is the shoulder. It is fashionable to have tounded, even sloping shoulders. The . .reat majority frankly vote for feminine seductiveness. Lots of the new sleeves nave their fullness below the elbows to make a point of “ladylike” shoulder The enormous Bishop sleeves that are a characteristic of the new fashions prolong themselves beyond the daytime models and appear in evening dresses or jackets.

What wae once known as the Sarah Bernhardt sleeve is in the fashion picture again. Long and tight and sometimes covering half of the hand, this sleeve has returned, but it does not always remain untrimmed. There are numberless exterior trimming sections applied to the plain background of the tight sleeve.

The waistline this season is a bit lower than in the past, although many of the new dresses show a pleasing and becoming compromise. Belts are seen placed definitely at the hipline, sometimes below the hipline, and are suited to individual figures. Eastern Influence Rampant.

The Eastern influence is rampant, especially in evening dresses. A Japanese silhouette is achieved by intricate seaming accentuating the long slim line to below the knee, and ending in a flare at either side of the skirt. Brilliantly flowered crinkled crepe, big bows in the back, and wide shoulder bags of kimono influence are all easily traceable to the Eastern island.

Skirts, although longer in the daytime, are frankly trailing in the evening. A new narrowness is noticeable, especially in the back of evening dresses, which flow out in graceful lines. Back importance is a special point where the new evening models are concerned. Ruffles and frills, drawn from the front of the bodice and over the shoulders, outline the back of the decolletage and fall to the hem down at the back of the skirt.

While the front of nearly all the corsages are rather high, the bare back is accentuated in most of the evening dresses. A pleasing effect is obtained in a printed silk evening dress with a bare back, and the front of the bodice tied round the neck in two short scarfends. Fascinating shell buttons and original diamond clips and fastenings are used in every case. Other interesting details are the square front decolletage of some of the evening dresses, their beltless siren backs, the multitude of small pleated and ruffled jabots, and the two long scarf ends which sometimes cross high at the neck, and hang in a tunic effect at the back, or can be drawn through the belt in front to give a wide-skirted Russian look. Jewellery. Square gold and platinum finger-rings are shown in many smart Paris jewellers’ windows. Some are engraved with monograms, or even mounted with stones, but all retain their four sharp corners, and are generally about half an inch wide. There are bracelets to match as well which look like sections cut from square tin boxes. All jewellery tends to be rather angular at the moment. Stones are cut square, tri- , angular, or perhaps in hexagons, or, again, they may have a sharp ridge ! down their centres. But few are , smoothly rounded, as in the past. : The ring which runs up from the base ! of the finger to the nail, like the jointed ! finger of an armoured gauntlet of the i knights of old, is still being worn by i those women who like to wear some- - thing strange. It is held on by three bands, one for each joint of the finger, s Other rings are cunningly devised so i that they expand. One half of the band • slips gently inside the other half, so that there is no break in the band, as is usual with the old type of expanding ring.