OUR LADIES' LETTER.

Evening Star, Issue 4263, 25 October 1876, Page 3

OUR LADIES' LETTER.

Paris, August 5. The annual distribution of prizes is at present taking place in all the schools throughout the country; boys and girls are coming home for the holidays, from lycees and convents, and as town apartments are very small, and children rather noisy, you find married friends busy paokiug up and making arrangements for a trip to tbe sea-side. The newspapers are crowded with puffs calling your attention to a host of new bathing-places. Every little fishing village on the coast of Normandy finds itself blest "with a fine shelving beach of smooth silky sand." The inland towns are not behind hand. Vichy, Mount Dore, Canterets, and other wateringplaces vie with each other in praising the beauty of the scenery, and recapitulating the ills for which their springs are a sovereign cure. One new " health station " informs us very gravely " that the power of its water is so great, that at the end of a few days those who drink of it often discover that theyare afflicted with diseases of whose existence they are not previously aware." Though 1 translate this literally, it loses much of its sparkle. These puffs are so many traps for invalids. None of our fashionables would be led by one of them to abandon the resorts adopted by the leaders of the hon ton. The other day Mdme. de L —, the young wife of a rich deputy, being upon the point of leaving for Trouville, ordered a trousseau complete from Worth. The order comprised a series of dresses for shrimping, bathing, shooting, racing, walking, dancing, yachting, "talking,'-' driving, and I know not what else. ' r he very day fixed for her departure the terrible man-milliner—for "Werth makes the woman " in Paris - was forced to own to Madame that not one of her dresses was completed. Words cannot describe the anguish of her heart. She sobbed like a child. "You oblige me," said she to Worth, "to miss my season at the seaside, when my doctor told me such was absolutely necessary for my health." This anecdote proves that we do not all understand the same thing by "repose." It is said that tbe season this year at watering places will be very quiet; at Trouville itself, that paradise of milliners and dressmakers, sweet simplicity is to be the order of the day. Ail eccentric toilettes are condemned, rich and expensive Btuffs are tabooed ; stripes of plain Oxford, set off by little bows of cherry or flame colored ribbon; supposing all this to be gospel, don't imagine it will affect the length of dressmakers' bills. By some unexplained mystery poplins, for example, when made up by Adolphe or Cavally, as much as the failles and satins of other days. Fashionable bonnets are little else than haymakers' hats, with a " wisp of red gauze" for sole trimming ; yet the price of one of Lucy Hocquet's "ducks of- bonnets" would provide a whole re- j giment of hop-pickers with hats. In I whatever material foulard, cashmere lincm, faille, &c, a costume be made up, or whatever color—white, blue, or red—be selected, the cuirasse must fit the figure like a glove ; and the whole toilette arranged to impart a slender, sylph-like expression. There must be nothing bulky, nothing heavy, nothing de, trop. Perhaps the most important change in fashion—after the adoption of colored stockings, shoes, and long gloves, to harmonise with the toilette—is the mode of wearing the hair. The age ©f chignons is past; the period for relying on one's own hair has at last arrived. It is worn a la Hor tense or Titus fashion, viz., falling in little ringlets on the forehead. This innovation is but transitory, the medium for restoring the practice permanently of wearing your own hair. False locks were unhealthy, andprevented the vigorous growth of what nature bestowed on us. Chignons produced headaches, and no husband really ever admired them—he felt the deceit was too notorious, and moralists assert that there never were more separations between married couples, more conjugal quarrels, and ruptures of affection than since ladies patronised false hair. The true luxury is saifl to be that which insists on articles being froq :ently renewed, thus, we have the luxury of carriages and toilettes ; but this remark is more applicable to jewellery, where what is most remarkable must not be toq frequently displayed, hence.the necessity of a plentiful suppply of jewels. The latest bracelet is called la Semaine—fhe week—consisting of seven rings of gold and platina, setting out from, and returning to, a shield ; (;ii the latter is engraved your crest or iiaitials or some fantastic device or sugI gestive emotto. It is simple and charming. The arrow or spearhead is the favorite bijou for earrings and brooches, it is composed of pearls and diamonds Such a pin looks very elegant in bows of 1 ace or lost in clouds of gauze; as an earring the effect is simply astonishing; how it enters the car is a mystery, and one which only the very prettiest ladies can explain, as they monopolise it. OM diamonds are not now re-set; they are the Cape diamonds that are patronised. M. Collas maintains that these gems are found in the " celestial circle " of our planet, that they fell from heaven at a period corresponding to tbe most primitive acre of creation, and formed beds or fields at the Brazil, Gol. onda, and the XJivil.