Paris Spring Fashions Show Wool Worsteds To Be Most Popular Fabric

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 54, 11 June 1948, Page 7

Paris Spring Fashions Show Wool Worsteds To Be Most Popular Fabric

Parisiennes are wearing their new spring outfits, and, while the chestnut trees blossom on the Champs Elysees, the women who make fashion news are appearing in worsted suitings. Never has there been such a demand for trim grey suitings, the more manly in design and col-, our the better. But there is nothing classical about the way in which they are made up. Skirts are full, jackets short and flaring about the hips, below neatly nipped-in waistlines.

The surprise this season is the sobriety of colour and the classicism of weave coupled with the extravagance of line, says the New Zealand Wool Board’s Paris fashion writer. Black and white shepherd’s plaid coat-frocks appear with black patent leather belts, often, with bodices cut away to show crisp white guimpes. A certain air of the demure jeune fille is evident, and although some colour enters into the picture, it is restrained. The revolt against floral prints, or indeed any prints at all, so much in evidence when the spring collections were shown, has enabled women to feel free and comfortable in wool frocks. The general consumption of wool fabrics in Paris just now is rising, longer hemlines and a fuller silhouette are making big demands upon fabric stocks. 1 The race between French manufacturers to see who can produce the finest, smoothest, and above all, the closest weaves in worsteds, is still on. Shortage of the fine wool required for spinning of worsted yarns is all that holds back the French industry from concentrating upon worsteds only. There is still little indication of novelty weaves making their reappearance.