PARISIENNES SHATTER ANOTHER FOND ILLUSION

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 66, 10 December 1937, Page 15

PARISIENNES SHATTER ANOTHER FOND ILLUSION

I write'this with tears in my eyes. A month in Paris has rudely shattered one of my oldest illusions, (says a woman writer in an English paper). I was, you see, brought up in the tradition of the elegant Parisienne." All pre-war girls were. Practical articlesv written for Englishwomen invariably contained reverent xeference to the middle-class Frenchwoman and the ex* quisite genius with which she kissed her husband, made soup (generally from a ha'porth of bones and the cabbaga stalk her less Tesourceful English couBin buried in the dustbin), arranged her coiffure and put on her hat. I've never forgotten those little lectures in print. So, naturally, I turned up in Paris last month for my first loaf Ln that divinely beautiful city, with my Lnferiority complex sticking out a mile. But stepping out among the haunta of those Parisienne counterparts of onr own City girls and young suhurban matrons, I snootily bade my I.C. gel back to its parking place. My sharp eye, wide open with shocked surprise, saw that the 1937 young middle-class mademoiselle is & mess. And I don 't care if ' this atatement starts another war. 1 Naturally I wash out those professional beauties; the actresses, photographers' and dressmakers' models. But then these types are lively. and soignee anywhere. What" first hits you in the eye about the young Parisienne is the blatant make-up she puts on. It's. a cross in colour between a slice of Cornish safifron cake and yellow jaundice. I went all Channel-crossing billious looking at it. Mademoiselle 's taste in dress is pretty good. Bnt that's not necessarily to her credit. A French dressmaker or tailor couldn't cut sloppily if he tried. Cock-eyed Hats. But when Mademoiselle and Demoiselle Paris put on these classy suits and frocks they invariably ruin their ensembles by a ghastly penchant for cock-eyed hats of the most cock-eyed. Another shock. No brilliant cut or cunning draping could camouflage the average mademoiselle 's figure. The incipient, and not so incipient, dowagers' humps on quite young girls! And ,• — let me say it as gracefully as I can— |the uncontrolled frontages and back* ages! The poor girls are xeally desperately lin need of a health and beauty, camipaign. So you can take it truthfully and cheerfully from me that our own imart business girls (particularly the London ones) of the classic legs and film-star figures knock beauty spots off their once deservedly famed Parisienne counterparts. And if modish women of the world .still turn to Paris for their fashions, ,then Mlle. Paris should surely come to iLpndon and take tips from out lovelies iin the art of looking sweet, charming iand most healthily alive. : Now let me hand out my one bouquet. jlt'e for Madame Paris. • Overlooking her depressing prefer* ence for widows' weeds and funereal 'all-black ensembles, the over-forty Frenchwoman is most attractive, most beautifully groomed, and what I can only describe as most important-look-ing. ■ That important look, of eourse, is ;something the British middle-aged ! woman rarely achieves. Instead she's jtoo often nebnlous, squashed and gent jerally entirely laoking in, clothes .cou' sciousness. I've seen her spend qnite a good snm on an outfit. But will she leave that , good outfit alonef She will not. It ■must have its matching scarf, its • contrasting posy, its hysterical gloves, its unsuitable hat, its fussy umbrella, its entirely unnecessaxy jewellery and its ornamental whatnots, Furthermore, the middle-aged Englishwoman's ingrained dislike or feat of make-up doesn't enhance her fading looks. Nor has she her French counterpart's instinct for exquisite grooming. Watch the next lot of middle-aged s you see pouring from the best seats at s theatre matinee and see if I'm not only too xightj, as the Aussies say^ .