CLOTHES STILL COUNT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20088, 7 November 1939, Page 12

CLOTHES STILL COUNT

WARTIME WARDROBE • BE SMART AND PRACTICAL LONDON EXPERT’S ADVICE LONDON, Sept. 21. The war cut oIT the crop of bustles, muffs, and all the other fancy autumn fashions before they had time to get out of the dressmakers’ showrooms. (In England, that, is: America is still hoping to be able to buy and wear all the French clothes they can get over.) But that does not mean that from now on we should decide to go around in nothing but plain, sensible coats and skirts. Look at the Queen; you probably saw pictures or news-reels of her inspecting the A.R.P. and Red Cross depots. Did you notice that on each occasion she was wearing a different outfit? And smart outfits: flowered hats, veils, pastel-coloured embroidered dresses—almost gardenparty clothes. No doubt they helped her to look as bright and smiling as she did; and the people she was inspecting liked looking at them. Spirit-Raising Effect

You will find the same thing applies to you. Probably you haven’t been bothering much what you put on these last two weeks; you hadn’t time. But put on your best suit to-morrow, and your new hat, and you’ll find that without knowing why, your spirits will rise. Mine did.

This spirit-raising effect of nice clothes is important to women—everything is important which makes yoti feel more cheerful.

But naturally it is not going to be so easy or so cheap to gel good clothes as it is now. When the present stocks have sold out—and they are selling fast—you will not find new ones at the same price. So it will pay you to start now and build up a wartime wardrobe; a good sound basis of essentials to which you can add as fashions change. (Because, don’t make any mistake, fashions will change, just as they did in the last war, which saw skirts go up 4in.)

The dress designers will help you; they have switched straight over to designing practical good-looking clothes.

War Wardrobe Essentials These seem to me to be the essentials of every woman’s war wardrobe (oven if you have a uniform); — A well-cut suit, tweed or plain, but in neither case too dated: two jerseys, two blouses to go with it. A good warm coat; something really warm, wind and weatherproof. If you live in a town, a dark coat, possibly fur-trimmed. One warm woollen dress in your favourite colour. One silk dress, dark, but not necessarily black.

One evening dress. ' One pull-on and stay-on felt hat: one fashionable and if you like slightly crazy hat. \

This is only the groundwork of a wardroke, of course; you probably have quite a few of the things already, and you can add to them from time :o time; make yourself spare jerseys, scarves, and so on.

Things you should avoid are: Startling checks which will bore you within six months and die on you within a year. Pleats and fussy details which need time and money to keep goodlooking. Anything too fragile or too dated.

Make a bid for bright colours though; it is possible that dyes may be liimted later on.