DRESS NOTES.

Evening Star, Issue 4247, 6 October 1876, Page 4

DRESS NOTES.

The “ specials ” at home have been great on the ladies’ dresses during the Ascot week. The ‘Daily Telegraph’ says “If some pictorial record, however slight and sketchy, but honest in rendering a general idea of shape and color, had been kept, year by year, concerning the dresses at Royal Ascot, how curious a collection it would be! The Princess of Wales wore a black silk dress with an amber front, and sleeves slashed with a broad stripe of the same color, the body being embroidered with gold lines in a very rich but also very chaste and harmonious manner ; the ruff, that becomes her head, face, and figure so well, completing gracefully the close outline of the neck. It is not flattery to say that this was the dress among all the dresses yesterday for a painter to admire. -Striking among the costumes, not one of which was without its individual merit or distinctiveness of character, were a few that may be briefly glanced at. As prominently typical of the revised class of art needlework, there could not have been the least difficulty in selecting a pale bluish grey silk dress, with jample train, skilfully embroidered with a kind of Arabesque design. IS ext to embroidery, the conspicuous varieties are velvet and satin; and it may be observed that even a few days bring about a change of fashion, and that the lavish trimmings of ostrich feathers have begun to be relinquished in favor of lace. Peacocks’ ‘eyes,’ however, as savoring of Japanese ornamentation, are still used, either in reality or else wrought in fanciful imitation. A white lace parasol, edged with this gorgeous plumage, and trimmed at the top with broad green ribbon, served as an accessory to a train dress of striped green and white, over a green silk petticoatthe dominantcolor being one of dark shade throughout. Then there was an all but perfect Japanese dress of pale blue satin," covered with a black pattern of the peacock feather, or, what is the same in Japanese decoration, the oyster-shell. A dark green satin dress, with very much darker top of green velvet, ornamented in front with silver buttons down to the point of the stomacher, was effectively set oft" by white sleeves, and by rich lace, marking the divisions of the satin and the velvet. Another dress, which was of pale blue and black sat : n, the black greatly predominating, stood well out from the trying rivalry aiound the toilette of varying yellow shades, from deep orange to the palest canary tint, and was much admired; and simply charming was a plain yellow-striped dress of some sort of delicate Indian texture, half silk and half game with knots of black velvet in a line down 1 the front, from the neck to the ground.”