FASHION IN WAR TIME

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 121, 25 June 1941, Page 6

FASHION IN WAR TIME

In these days of uncertainty and change, our minds naturally travel. back to the eve of the last great upheaval. What did we wear, what did we look like while that other world was shaking? History tells us that the more serious the times, the more triumphantly fashion asserts itself. And 1914 with it's swallowtailed jackets and shepcrdess crooks, over-tunics embroidered in pearls, taffeta day-dresses, harem hems, hats sihooting out birds of paradise, was no exception. They bent 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 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, stiffly bone the body as in the days of those pre-Great 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 looks back through th( 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-workeis of to-day. In fact women are recognising the necessity for a corset, and it is specified as part of tlic British service uniform.