FORTHCOMING FASHIONS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20541, 16 February 1935, Page 26 (Supplement)

FORTHCOMING FASHIONS.

Millinery That is Heart-breaking. MAKE-UP MATCHES WARDROBE. (By A PARIS EXPERT.) “Match your dress with your make* up.” This is the motto for the new season, and you blend the colours of your ensembles with your cosmetics. I have seen demonstrations of this, and the effect is extraordinarily good. With the right make-up you can wear any shade you like, even the colour you have always secretly liked, but which did not suit you. But I warn you—you will need the touch of an artist to be successful. The only way to solve the problem, of course, is to take a thorough course of lessons in the art of portrait painting—for it is nothing less, and you can achieve a new chef-d’oeuvre twice a day But to succeed in anything requires patience, and if you give a halfhour, no less, to your task of making up, you will have taken an important step towards beauty, even though it may be less than skin deep. Life is really becoming so complicated. Not so long ago we all wore the same shade of rouge, the same shade of lipstick, and the same shade of powder for morning or evening, happy in our blissful ignorance. Then the beauty special-

ists in no uncertain words, told us just what our daytime make-up looked like in artificial light and'vice-versa—and we shuddered, and hurriedly bought the right ones. The true Parisienne tendency for food line, and every detail in exceptionally good taste, runs through the new dresses. Youthful simplicity and a variety of new ideas, none of which are extravagant, seems to characterise every model. Lines are straight, though for evening gowns the fullness is generally concentrated in the back and often tends to develop into a train. Many skirts are slit in one or more places, to enable them to retain a perfect line without any pull when the wearer moves. There is a dignity, yet a youthful touch to every dress. Flowing lines help to accentuate the silhouette, and the cowl backs to many capes and dresses, some of which are thrbwn back like hoods, often stand out stiffly from the neck, while others are caught in several loops. Intricate handwork and neat embroidery sometimes adorn the hems of skirts, necklines, jabots and sleeves. Scalloped, petalled and other decorative lines appear on the hems of afternoon dresses. Several of the new dresses have plastron effects. Blouses to. go with costumes are carefully studied. Taffeta, organdie and embroidered muslins, very elaborately stiffened and shaped, are seen. Knitted Dresses. Knitted dresses, three-piece, as well as two-piece ensembles, are no longer the weird, rather bunchy things they used to be. Skirts are marvels of simplicity, fitting smoothly and snugly and fashioned so that they can be reversed from front to back, to allay any suspicion on your part that they tend to bulge after a few weeks of wear. Tops are ingeniously designed in lacy effects, so thart they look like interesting new blouses, instead of the severe sweaterlike affairs they used to be. The new stitch inventors have been busily occupied developing different ideas about the “knits’* you will wear and buy. They have done some audaciously distinctive tricks with the new stuffs—delightfully dizzy stripes, some wonderful plaids, and some new colours that will positively make a brilliant success as the season advances. A double duty knit dress is interesting. With a ruffled jabot that cascades down the centre of the chest, it assumes a dress-up appearance, soft and flattering. Without the jabot, it becomes a emart tailored affair for sports wear. Other enterprising knitters have used anything and everything they could find for yarn or thread. For instance, there is a linen thread which makes into charming dresses, and a knitted affair gone completely Scotch with criss-cross colour stripings that achieve a hearty plaid. It is the gayeet, smartest new knit you can possibly see. The new hats will be responsible for the change in hairdressing. Long hair is coming back. Nearly as flat as pancakes are these new hats, often with the merest semblance of a crown, and tilted forward on to the nose, leaving the whole of the back of the head completely exposed. The obvious solution is to balance the effect by letting the hair grow, and many of the smartest

women, in anticipation, are wearing their hair in a roll on the nape of the neck, or brushing it back in a neat cluster of curls. Should the hair be quite long, some very smart women bundle their hair into a sort of fish net on the neck. If women like the new vogue, they can start the effect of one that is nothing less than an outsize in berets with a wavy brim pulled well over the eyes, or one of the new large flat velvet picture hats bedecked with silky paradise plumes—these are labelled “heartbreakers. ’* For the romantic minded, the tricorne, the unicorne and the fourcornered shape will be fashionable. Very trying, though, are these hats, unless the wearer boasts of a Grecian or even of a tip-tilted nose. Aquilines should beware of the tricorne, bicorne and unicorne. The small beret persists, and they are often trimmed with feathers. Most of them plunge forward over the eyes in quite a decided manner, whether they be vizor brimmed or merely turned up in the back or down in the front.