FASHION—AND FOUNDATION GARMENTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 144, 20 June 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

FASHION—AND FOUNDATION GARMENTS

Dame Fashion has made a complete switch-over from the straight silhouette in which our figures counted for little, to the Princess silhouette with its higher waist and its unhappy knack of exhibiting all our minor—to say noth ing of our major—deficiencies of figure. It has left most of us gasping a little, for if the care-free post-war years care of our figures has gone by the board, an 1 been replaced by increased attention to powder puff and ipstiek. With the straight frocks of the immediate past, outward appearance mattered most -but now fashion’s bombshell brings us back to the sad reality of neglect cd posture. When we heaved our corsets aside with relief while the straight-type frocks were in vogue, we little realised that a day of reckoning lay ahead. -Now, the statements and ideas of leading Paris dress designers show that they have realised where neglect lias led, and to day . hey are working hand in hand with corsetieres, building beautiful figures to display to advantage to-day’s exquisite frocks. With these close-fitting frocks every line of our figure is clearly shown, defects become prominent, and spoil the charming effects our designers now secure. Look over the women at any large evening function, and the vagaries of figure are at once in evidence. It is a saddening and sobering sight, and makes us want to run home quickly and have a look in the mirror, just to assure ourselves that we really are different. Because of our freedom from restraint of any kind, most of our figures have got out of hand, and there’s not 10 per rent, of us to-day who can boast of lines that show the latest models to perfection. We have only to keep our eyes open to be very sure of that.

Are we doomed, then, to feel atrociously ill at ease in frocks which we know show up our weaknesses? Surely not. There is a clear way out, and the Paris dress designers have given us the lead. It lies in getting the right type of foundation garment, and building ourselves better ligures. How the older of us date that word il corsets”—simply because it conjures up visions of those old-time hideous and barbaric garments that pinched and pushed us into shape. “We won’t ever wear them again,” we said when we threw them over years ago, and today many of us not only hate the thought of going back to them, but would refuse to do so. Fortunately for us, science has come to the aid of the corsetiere, and the garments of yesteryear are no harm. The corset to-day is really not a cor so 4 - as we knew it. It is a foundation garment of delicacy and charm, made in the daintiest of materials, and it holds us and moulds us in the most gentle way. With the Princess silhouette, busts are uplifted, and there’s no way of achieving that without support of some kind. The minor defects of figure which most of us possess, and which become so apparent and annoying with the latest frocks, are easily overcome by correctly designed foundation garments. We all want to be able to wear fashionable garments gracefully, and we can do that with these dainty foundations that are so unlike the corsets <-f earlier days. Unless we have attended one of the periodical demonstrations, we fail to realise the advance that corsetry has made in the last few years. How many know, for instance, that 20,000 Australian and New Zealand women were measured by scientists in order that type could be gauged with perfect accuracy! It is amazing to, know that there are but live types within which we all fall, yet it is so, that the sixteen stone woman may be perfectly proportioned and in the same type class as a woman half her weight. That piece of scientific work opened a new era as far as corsets were concerned. It was apparent at once that the old type corsets were crude in the extreme, and cruel in their lack of fitting, since they went by size and not by type. To-day the dainty foundation garments we may wear with our newest frocks are made in so many sizes, in each of the five type classes, that every one can get an exact fitting. There’s another point of very great, interest to those of us who are fussy about health matters. We all know j how the old style of corset earned rhe w'hole hearted condemnation of medical men. The makers of these modern foundation garments consult medical men before they alter the design, and to-day there arc many doctors who consider that every woman should have a foundation garment in the interests of health. It seems to be about the first instance in history where fashion and medicine have got into line, and where it really is good from a health viewpoint to follow fashion’s latest decrees.