A Glimpse of What is to Come

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21035, 10 February 1940, Page 17 (Supplement)

A Glimpse of What is to Come

Fate’s finger points to good fortune for you this autumn. You will meet a distinguished stranger, a well-dressed woman with a new silhouette, wearing new colours, achieving a new chic and a new charm.

Where will you meet her? In the mirror. And she is obviously destined to have a lucky influence on your life. Her head will be smoothly rounded because she wears a turban, or else it will be somewhat elongated because of her neat high hat. Her shoulders padded and slightly squared; her sleeves wrist-length and simple.

Her waist will be a not i c e a b 1 e feature, appearing almost incredibly small; her lips will also attract the eye, having suddenly emerged from rep r e s s i o n and concealment into softly rounded curves. Her skirt will be short and full, though with a conservative fullness that suggests elegance and not the perki-

ness of the little girl; most of its fullness will spring from

the back, where, by means of pleats, gores, gathers, drapes, bows, or a short jutting peplum, it will convey a gay hint of the bustle.

Nearly all the big French designers have accented them in one way or another; by little draped panniers or puffs on an afternoon frock, by bows of Persian lamb on a coat, by ruffles, wide loops, or stiffened draperies on an evening dress. There are new woollen coat-frocks buttoned tightly down the front, with fullness drawn from the hips up to the centre back and there softened into drapery.

There are afternoon dresses in faille (y es, stiff fabrics are coming in for afternoon frocks as well as for evening ones) with waistlines that drop a fraction at the back above a jutting peplum or flared panel. And all these treatments, by accenting the hips and suggesting the bustle, help still further diminish your already lessened waist. If you are

slender and hipless, the new dresses will give you an unaccustomed femininity; if your hips are the kind that shrink from the spotlight, the dresses will help you by minimising your waist and leaving the public in doubt as to how much of your hips is nature and how much art.

As for the bustles, back flares, and back draperies, in one form or another they should be everyone’s pick and nobody’s poison. They can be young, gay and amusing, or sophisticated, elegant, even stately; it’s all a matter of how, where, and with what cunning they are placed. For sports and informal daytime clothes, of course, you’ll forget about drapes and bustles altogether. You’ll wear smartly simple wool frocks with trim-fitting bodices, plain or bishop sleeves, and flares, pleats, or unpressed pleats in the skirts. These frocks are clear-cut in line, interesting and original in detail. One may fasten by means of leather straps, each strap in a different colour; another may boast a printed Persian scarf, a plaited belt in strands of soft pink and blue, or a gay embroidered pocket. Attractive Colours Colours are specially attractive; there’s a new brown-pink, a clear red known as Pavilion, a Moghul yellow (smart, but not the easiest thing to wear) and a lovely glowing Imperial violet. Or you’ll go in wholeheartedly for big bright tartans and plaids, for clever little suits with gored skirts and. short fitted jackets, for wristlength top coats with hoods that look just as fascinating pulled up or pushed down. You’d like to make one good purchase now? To lay a sound foundation stone by investing in something thalwill be smart and useful straight away and also carry you right along into the cold weather? Pick a black wool frock with a flaring skirt, and top it with a short, brightly coloured jacket. Have it just as gay as you like; scarlet, perhaps, or emerald green. It’s good to liven up your black this way. And such a dress and jacket will see you all through autumn and, later, slip smartly under your big top coat. Or choose a tweed three-piece. Have a gored skirt in plain colour, a fitting, high-buttoning jacket in small check, and a spirited, square-should-ered —wrist-length or fulllength—in a big bold check that picks up the jacket’s tones and adds one more colour. Now’s the best moment, too, to consider buying a short fur jacket, boxy and square-cut. Furs ara still at “between-seasons” prices, and happily some of the most attractive jackets are made in comparatively inexpensive furs such as squirrel and the newly smart and hard-wearing skunk.

Pick one with wide roomy shoulders and sleeves; then it will slip over a plain collarless coat or a slim-line suit as well as over your dresses. It’s a worth-while purchase that doubles, at a blow, the resources of your wardrobe.