WAR FASHIONS

Evening Star, Issue 23693, 28 September 1940, Page 18

WAR FASHIONS

“ BATTLE DRESS " BLOUSES London dress designers have been showing autumn fashions, writes 1 Corisandc,” in tlie ‘ Evening Standard.’ Agents and buyers for Canada and the United States have been spending hours studying dress styles for overseas customers. Here is a brief summary of the new fashions: . 1. Shorter skirts for the daytime. “ AVe must save material,” say the designers, so hemlines are 17 or 18 inches above the ground—-about two inches shorter than a year ago 2. Slick-fitting jackets for suits with a well-defined waistline, big pocketsfour is the ordinary' allowance on a coat. Jackets come about four inches below the hipbone. 3. Wrap coats arc very loose, with a full back, are sometimes belted, or close-fitting to the waist and flare outwards at the hem. 4. Fur being on the “ luxury ” list, its use as a trimming is strictly rationed. The majority of wrap coats are plain and collarless; some have a shallow fur collar, and a narrow band of fur outlining the pockets. British tweeds and woollens arc “ star ” turns. An agency for these materials has been opened in New York. “ Two-in-one ” Suits. English women this winter will have ample opportunities of proving that they can wear tweeds and tailor-mades more successfully than anyone else. Economy has produced the “ Country into Town Suits,” a plain suit for the country, with a second coat, sometimes fur trimmed, which transforms a country suit into a London outfit. Blouses modelled on “ battle dress ” lines are shown with tweed suits. Practical tailored tweed _ dresses to wear under fur coats are trimmed with soutache braid on collars and pockets; with petit point embroidery in bright coloured wools, or with bead embroidery of the kind that Victorian greataunts worked as covers for cushions and stools many, many years ago.