LONDON AND PARIS FASHIONS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 11, 18 March 1893, Page 261

LONDON AND PARIS FASHIONS.

DEMI-SAISON MANTLES. (SEE ILLUSTRATION./ SOME very charming mantles were shown for autumn wear. I send you two sketches out of the vast number I had to select from. They will give you a good idea what to wear. Later I have two lovely jackets for your consideration. The first is a smart mantelette of black velvet, shot with gold. A fine coque trimming edges the collar and fronts, while the deep shoulder cape is ornamented with jet fringe. Tiny bonnet in coffee-brown straw, with tall loops of rushes and paste buckle. The second is a three-quarter coat of terracotta cloth, with deep corselet, braided in black and terminating in a long cora fringe. The cape is trimmed with the finest curled ostrich tips. Mouse-coloured felt hat, with black wings and flowers. NEW SLEEVES. Given twenty costumes, and the probabilities are that there would be at least eighteen different patterns of sleeves among them. From the close-fitting slightly full-topped sleeve to the enormous bag-shaped affair gathered at top and bottom and made with fulness that forms it into a puff all around the arm ; the enormous shoulder-puffs with closefitting sleeve below ; the draped sleeves that look as though each one had an independent cape of its own ; the genuine leg.o’-mutton, with every imaginable style of trimming, and the newest sleeve which falls but little below the elbows and is finished with a wide flounce of lace or the material — it seems that ingenuity has exhausted itself in the one item of variety. For plain wool dresses there are deep cuffs of velvet with full tops of the dress material, or the order is reversed. Sleeves have shoulder caps, insertion, puffs, ruffles, ruchings and pleatings of velvet, soft silk, lace or ribbon. A dressy sleeve has the top made of Indian silk, which is drawn and draped and folded and puffed until there seems no place left in which to lay another bit of fulness. This elaborateness extends from shoulder to elbow. Below this the sleeve is of elaborate embroidery laced up on the outside of the arm with narrow velvet ribbon. A novelty has a very full puff from shoulder to elbow. Below this are two box-pleated rnfflas with bows of velvet ribbon set among the pleatings. This ruffled portion covers the elbow, and from this is a deep fall of embroidery or lace, deep on the lower side and narrow where it falls over the arm. Velvet ribbons with loops and ends are used as trimming. Many of the new sleeves are buttoned or laced from wrists to elbows, and some almost the entire length of the arms.