WOMEN'S WORLD

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 215, 20 September 1940, Page 3

WOMEN'S WORLD

FASHION IN WAR TIME In these days of uncertainty and change our minds naturally travel back tio the eve or the last great upheaval. What did Ave wear, what did we look like while that other world was shaking? History tells lis that the more serious the times the more triumphantly fashion asserts itself. And. 1914 with its swallowtailed jackets and shepherdess crooks, over-tunics embroidered in pearls, taffeta day-dresses, harem hems, hats shooting out birds of paradise, was no exception. They •went back to Watteau for '-inspiration. The collections launched at the outbreak of this present upheaval went back to Goya and Velasquez, and to the fashions of the violently romantic nineteenth, century. These give us rich satins and brilliant colours, the Infantes head-dress, chinstraps, and snoods. They give us corsets that pull in the waist-line comfortably, mould the torso from the curve of the bosom to the curve of the hip in a smooth, long, rounded line that gives a new shape, but will not stiffly bone the body as in the days of those pre-Greut War stays. Fashion depends upon the silhouette to a great degree, and to-day's silhouette definitely calls for the control of good foundation garments, This is a comforting reflection, when one liooks back through the fashions of the years since 1914 with their horrors of the corsetless era and the boyish silhouette. From the point of view of maintaining health through good posture and the relief- of strain both nervous and physical, it is a blessing that there seems to be no desire to discard foundations among the women war-workers of to-day. In fact women are recognising the necessity for a corset, and it is specified as part of the British service uniform. NO MORE BURNT FINGERS Metal saucepans willl become too hot to handle and many tender fingers result through trying to remove the lid without stopping to use a cloth.. Here is a simple method to avoid this. Next time you open a corvtainer with a large; cork save the cork. It will do excellently for pushing under the lid handle. See that it fits tight and juts out each side of the lid handle a little at least. The lid can then be easily and safely removed by holding the end of the cork instead of the handle. "RIGHT HAND MEN" The vogue of the woman private secretary has come to Whitehall, states a writer in the London Evening News. In every list so far issued of the new Ministers' private secretaries, the name of a woman is to be found. One of Mr Churchill's five private secretaries is Miss E. M. Watson. She holds the C.V.O. and the C.B.E. Mr Attlee has eselected as his personal private secretary Miss Gooch. The Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Mr T, William's, has appointed Mrs D. Y. Wormald as his private secretary, while Mr Bevin, Minister of Labour, has chosen Miss Mildred Riddelsdell for a similar position. Miss Riddelsdell won 29th place against honours men of' Oxford and Cambridge at the 1936 examinations for administrators, reckoned the stift'cst in the world. Among the optional subjects which she chose were Political Theory and Political Organisation, being awarded 81 per cent in the former and 74 per cent in the Tatter. She was educated at St. Mary's. Hall, Brighton, and afterwards at the Bedford College for Women, and was Tssigncd to the Ministry of Labour. She will be Mr Bcvin's "right hand man." In the Treasury, where all the secrets of the Empire are concentrated, the woman private secretary is at the heart of affairs. Lord Baldwin gave women their Magna Carta and opened the way for- them to the highest appointments in the State when, as Premier, he declared in the House of Commons that he "had never known a case of-leakage in Whitehall due to a woman. After that, the popular illusion that women could not keep secrets was no longer a bar to their selection for the highest positions in the Civil Service, Much of the. most confidential information reaching a department passes through the heads of a private secretary to a Minister; here is one of the most coveted jobs in Whitehall.