VELVET ROBES FOR PEERESSES AT CORONATION

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 1, 16 January 1937, Page 10

VELVET ROBES FOR PEERESSES AT CORONATION

The coronation, to a peefess of Great Britain, is not the simple and relatively inexpensive oceasion it inay be to the ordinafy Woman. It ffieans considerable expense for ■entertaining and large dtess bills. For the ceremony alone, it entaails a cost of velvet ("Royal Quality") at £5 a yard. Peeresses commanded to attend at Westminater Abbey are obliged to wear full robes, aecording to their degree, and those who do not have the good fortune to own sueh robes (and very f'ew dd) must be prepared to pay anything frm £100 to £500 for the kirtle and mantle whieh correspond to the offieial description. These garments are made up of velvet, miniver and ermine. It sounds prohibitive until you remember that velvet is hand-woven and is in all its processes ~so complicated that even the cost price is deemed "extremely reasonable" by conservative manufacturers. The oflicial description of a peeress' robe is "a kirtle of crimson velvet with i a narrow edging of miniver, scalloped in front, plain otherwise. The kirtle, which may be fastened either at the back or at the front,. opens from the waist, widening gradually to the grouiid. "It may also be gathered .back in three festoons, each tied with a bow of gold tinsel. "The sleeves, which are about nine inches long, ' have two narrow1 rows of miniveri below which are flve lappets varying in lengthj the ottter one three inches, the inner one one ineh, each Cdged in a similar mannor with miniver»,> Over thiB is worn a mantie on which a cape of miniver pure is "powdered" with. bats or rOWs of ermine, ermine in this case meaning narrow pieces of blaok fur, and miniver the white fur commonly known as erxnine. Drees regulations have to be exactly followed. Degrees of peeresses are indicated by the width of the miniver edging the mantle, the length of the train, and the niimber of ermine "bats" on the oape» A baroness is entitled to a train three feet on the ground, two bars of ermine, and a two-inch wide edging of border to her mantle. ^A- Visoountess: Train, if yards; bars Of ermine, 2|j edging of miniver, 2 inches. A oountess: Train, ij v ardBj bars of ermine, 8; edging of miniver, 3 inches, A marohioness: Train, 1| yards; bars, 8i; miniver edging,' 4 inches. A duehess: Train, 2 yards, bars, 4; miniver edging 5 inches-