LONDON AND PARIS FASHIONS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 30, 25 July 1891, Page 208

LONDON AND PARIS FASHIONS.

ELEGANT BALL AND DINNER GOWNS.

(SEE FASHION-PLATE, PAGE 209.)

At the present season of the year everyone is more or less interested in novel designs for evening toilettes, and we are therefore glad to be able to show our readers on page 209 some very beautiful gowns, both for dinner and for dancing. They are remarkable for perfection of good taste. No. 1 is a lovely ball gown, a perfect harmony for halfmourning in heliotrope and white. The foundation is of white satin, draped entirely with the softest folds of heliotrope chiffon, and ornamented all round the skirt a la Josephine, with festoons of chiffon, drawn up here and there, and held in place by bunches of white roses, rosebuds, and green leave?, the flowers being so perfectly natural in colour and shape that you feel almost sure they must be real. The bodice is draped with chiffon, add trimmed with flowers to correspond.

No. 2 is a very beautiful evening gown, with a bodice and train of handsome white brocade, with flowers and leaves in white silk upon a satin ground. The train is cut quite square, and arranged in a novel fashion with flat pleats of brocade turned over on each side, and bordered with a wide fringe of white ostrich feather trimming. A ruche of white ostrich feathers may be seen bordering the hem of the skirt in front. Similar feathers trim the smart low bodice in the effective manner shown in the sketch.

No. 3 is a handsome dinner gown of pale grey bengaline, made with a long train, and very wide pleats on either side of the skirt, arranged to meet in a point at the waist. The front breadth of the skirt is most exquisitely embroidered in steel, the design being finished round the hem with a deep fringe of fine steel beads. The bodice is particularly becoming to the figure with its deep Swiss belt, formed entirely of fine steel embroidery to correspond with the trimming on the front of the skirt.