DETERMINE TO BE BEAUTIFUL!

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 4, Issue 5, 2 November 1925, Page 25

DETERMINE TO BE BEAUTIFUL!

MRS. ARNOLD BENNETT, WHO WROTE THIS ARTICLE. IS THE WIFE OF THE FAMOUS AUTHOR. SHE TELLS YOU HOW THE FRENCHWOMAN MANAGES TO PRESERVE HER AIR OF CHARM AND SERENITY, WHEN SO MANY ENGLISHWOMEN “LET THEMSELVES GO” AND BECOME DISHEVELLED

WHY is it that the Englishwoman who wants to be smart goes to Paris for her clothes? And, more interesting still, why do you, when you go into any English store that caters for beauty specifics, always find the best ones made by French makers? Obviously, demand creates supply. It is because the Frenchwoman has always made a fine art of her appearance that her dressmakers, dress-designers, and beauty salons are the finest in the world. It is because the average Frenchwoman really knozvs how to wear her clothes and how to make the most of her beauty, that women from all over the world go to her for ideas. zA form of flattery ! I 'HERE is a strange phenomenon in France and England today that strikes the woman whose life is shared between both countries. That is, the way in which these two countries are copying each other. Englishwomen have always copied the Frenchwoman to a great extent, although they have such a reputation for insularity. But it was only during the War that Frenchwomen realised thaat there was anything they could learn from their sisters across the Channel. They met Englishwomen intimately for the first time in their lives in large numbers. They saw the devoted work of English nurses, the free camaraderie and jollity of the V.A.D. girls, and they —the great middle class who in France as in New Zealand form the backbone of the —realised that there was much they might, with profit, copy. ricks of fascination A7OU don’t copy a nation or an * individual, to any great extent, consciously. Their personality soaks into you; you imitate unconsciously, almost as children do their parents. So we have the strange spectacle of the French girl, formerly carefully chaperoned, ultra feminine, soignee, coming out into the open and demanding the emancipation English girls won much earlier. Nowadays you will find the French girl in short skirts that her mother would never have thought of wearing, running about with men friends as she never did before, demanding the right to be boyish is she likes. While at the same time the English girl who rubbed shoulders with her during the War is learning all the little tricks of fascination and charm that were Greek to her only a few years ago. Perhaps the most interesting thing to note is how, with all her emancipation, her boyishness, the French girl retains her charm and her cool, well turned out appearance even on the most strenuous holiday. You find her always in harmony with her surroundings, and this applies to the French matron as well as the girl; indeed, the matron has never changed; she follows her own way, smart, calm, tranquil.- And her daughter, for all her strenuous amusements of to-da}', is the same.

.'Perfection in \Dress r I 'HE secret of it is that the Frenchwoman, from her cradle, knows exactly the right dress for the right moment, and even more important, understands perfectly the accessories of that dress. She believes in simplicity to-day, in the perfect cut, the perfect line. At the sea she will nearly always wear

white or some clean, natural colour, and she will have everything to match. If you go to the English seaside resorts where everybody makes holiday. your eye is pained by many and vivid colours, and by dress much too elaborate for the occasion. Then again, English girls do not realise

that they should dress up to their complexions, which are the most beautiful in the world. Vivid colours kill, instead of bringing out, the beauty of the human skin. It is, of course, that the workers on holidays wear their “best” clothes; and “best” clothes are still uncomfortably elaborate and showy. The French girl’s clothes are so harmonious and so simple that they

never look out of place; a few well cut dresses of linen, a smart skirt and jumper and that indefinable charm which is our birthright. You seldom see a Frenchwoman with beetroot red face sitting in the sun being burnt to death, nor do you see her with skin peeling and great sun blisters. I have seen Eng-

Hsh girls in evening dress at the seaside with white shoulders and an ugly V of bright red or brown skin on the neck. OEFORE she motors or goes into the water at the seaside the Frenchwoman will prepare just as an actress will, with creams and lotions, so that her skin is not spoilt by the hard sea water. No girl will let her hair remain in sea water, knowing that it will take away the natural oil and the beautiful gloss. No girl who values her complexion will subject it to the action of sea water, sun and wind. Savages might, and suffer no evil consequences, but you must remember that savages are living in a natural condition where sunlight and sea water does not hurt them. And even savages oil their skins a great deal— many savages in the South Sea Islands, where they live a great deal in the water, suffer from skin complaints. There is a chemical property in sea water that destroys the human skin; there is an activity in sunlight that is so powerful that it is used by doctors to destroy diseased tissue. Obviously, if it will destroy diseased tissue it will destroy skin. This is scientific knowledge. The English girl’s skin is much more sensitive than the skin of the brunette races. A pigment is formed by the action of the sun through many generations, and this pigment protects the skin, thickening and coarsening it. The beauty and sensitiveness of the English skin comes from England’s dampness and lack of sunshine. I do not say that the Frenchwoman knows all these scientific facts as a general thing, but the maker of skin and beauty specifics does, and he applies his scientific knowledge to making something protective and harmless for the skin. Dancing and the c Po')vderTuff r ! 'HERE is a queer fact about Frenchwomen that I have noticed since the War. That is, that the standard of dress for the middle classes is more luxurious. Evening dress, if ever worn, was reserved for really important occasions in the old days, but to-day every girl has one or two evening dresses, simply because, as in England, dancing is so popular that almost every girl or woman of every social grade will dance for hours in the evening. And with this comes the prevalence of make-up. Once make-up was reserved for the demi-mondaine and the actress. To-day, everybody flies to the rouge-pot and the powder-puff, the little pot of cream and enamel. It is not noticed, everybody does it. And it is a clever device. You can hide your emotions behind a powder puff and a touch of rouge. You never look flustered or heated or chilled! To sum up. The Frenchwoman always looks smart and cool and collected because she knows that she is wearing exactly the right thing, that her face is weather proof and mood proof, and that whatever comes her way she is suitably and pleasantly dressed to meet it.