Ladies' Column.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 382, 3 September 1903, Page 2

Ladies' Column.

FASHION AND THINGS FEMININE

By MISS ADA MELLEK

A PICTURESQUE TEA GOWN. of cur best-known and most fflrJw popular novelists once took up Hj§R> the cudgels, through a monthly magazine, on behalf of the tea gown, proclaiming its virtues and asking why it was that so charming a robe should be forbidden to appear at theatres and dinner-parties. The answer has, I believe, never yet been satisfactorily given. The cause of the tea-gown is worth championing, for never was there a more delightful style of dress. A teagown of soft silk, held becoming to the upper part' of the figure by means of a

rounded bolero of tucked silk and lace insertion, bordered with lace and knotted in front with ribbon stringß, is the pettiest of negligees, a suggestion for which is given in the accompanying sketch. Carried out in white, pale pink, or pale blue washing silk, with ficelle or white lace insertion, the tea gown is seen at its best. For more useful wear, however, it is effective in bronze-coloured Ecfl silk and yellow lace. SPRING MILLINERY. New hats and toques for early spring wear give abundant evidence of the fact that gold-colt ured straw and black-and-white mixed straw will be leading features in the millinery world. The new sailor hat, or rather the hat that is going to replace the old-fashioned sailor hat, is of • gold' Coloured straw with a wide brim upturned at the edge and narrowing c(I at the back, where it is frequently split up and tbe break filled in with a bow of black velvet ribbon, a band of velvet encircling the crown or two bands being passed across it. Sometimes the'! brimedge is bound with velvet, which is an improvement. Hats of similar shape, to the one alluded to, are produced' with black straw brims and crowns composed of alternate rows of black and white or black and yellow straw. The crowns to v the new hats, by the way, are very broad; A trimming that prevails for black and white straw hats is the Btiff quill, pierced through the brim. Turban toques in ' burnt' straw, iH white straw, in black straw, and also produced with crowns of gold-coloured straw and brims of black, are flooding the shop windows and pro-

mise to be ' the craze ' during the forthcoming season. The accompanying sketches of two new hats for the spring illustrate simple but smart styles that are among the latest vogues. The hat with three bands of black velvet on the brim is a gold-coloured straw, and shows a novel trimming that is likely to be much used on hats with brims, such as the one sketched, that curl up very deeply at the back and are reduced in front, The three bands of velvet broaden at the back and are caught down near the front with fancy buttons, and the crown is trimmed with velvet bows, The other hat, with a gold buckle in front, looks charming in white or black chip bound with watered- ribbon and, trimmed Under the brim with ribbon to match, two green quills being laid across the crown and the stems piercing both crown and ribbon. A red hat with black quills would also be smart.

MAGPIE MIXTURES. White hats trimmed -with blaek are much worn in fashionable circles, and indeed magpie mixtures are largely patronised both for millinery and dress purposes. A white hat, trimmed with a scarf of white satin foulard spotted with black, is draped over the brim with black Chantilly lacp, and haß a bow of black velvet centred by a fancy buckle on the crown t and -another smart toque is carried out in strips of black and white cloth ? interlaced, with a white Hussar aigrette, held with a jet oabochon, on tha brim. There is a marked predilection for gowns of cut cloth mounted on glace silk slips, the cloth being black-and the Blip white.' Sometimes, again, both slip and cloth will be black, or white, as J fancy inclines. Magpie gowns in this style ajre quite the latest vogue. ' > i-. ■ SPRING MILLINERY. New hate and tcquas for early spring wear give abundant evidence of the fact that gold-coloured straw and black-and-white mixed strawwill be leading features . in the millinery world.