MATERIALS RATIONED

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21156, 4 July 1940, Page 10

MATERIALS RATIONED

GERMAN FASHION FRONT According to an overseas writer, Dame Fashion is having a thin time in war-time Germany. American newspaper correspondents say that Party publications storm against Parisian styles as being “ unfit and degrading to German mothers.” The obstacles in the way of being chic on one rationed dress a year are intensified by a shortage of all the things which women need to make new dresses out of old ones—sewing silk and lining; attractive buttons are almost impossible to get. and leather handbags can't be bought at all. New ideas have been launched by the Frankfort Fashion Centre to solve women’s pride, the centre being as important to German women as the Rue de la Paix to Parisians. Fashion has turned into an old Mother Hubbard. Her dog is hungry because German fashion leaders have taken his bone to make her an ersatz blouse Glass Shoes For Cinderella The leather shortage is being solved by making women’s shoes out of glass. Like Cinderella’s, they are made of hard, unbreakable glass* said to be equal to the best leather. Several seasons ago Parisians saw glass shoes allied with sheer stockings, but the German Cinderellas will have to put up with heavy lisle. New materials are being launched in an enormous popularity drive. Made from fish skins, they arc the product of a tannery near Offenbach. Cod, salmon, and perch are considered the most suitable skins, and