SOME NOTES FROM PARIS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8356, 17 February 1913, Page 5

SOME NOTES FROM PARIS

There has been a crush of women to hear M. Jean Eiohepin, of the Academic Francaise, discourse ,on Lady Macbeth, and to see the “divine" Bartet, of the Comedio-Francaise, in the mad-scene. M. Bichepin made a study of the two noble criminals, and caused the emotional audience shudder and thrill. Women, again, were packed like herrings at the opening of the Automobile Show. And every day, from three to six, the best known of the Paris sportswomen and lady-drivers, besides those who come to show their toilettes, pass and repass before the principal stands in the Grand Palais. Motor dress is one of the attractions, and the dear little hoods in leather, lined with fur, are appealing to every woman who motors. Long fur coats and rows of pearls are as common here as pneumatic tyres, but everybody to-day is not interested in the most ex-, pensive of care. There seems to be a desire—even on the part of the wealthiest —to buy low-powered cars; and it is at the stands where these are shown that the crowd becomes densest. Green velvet, green satin, green tulle are to be seen in the hidden workrooms of the big milliners and dressmakers. Hidden, of course, from the public, but to the privileged few nothing is hidden; and it is through a chromatic scale of green, from the most delicate tints of the early lettuce to the most brilliant of grass greens, that I picked my way in one of the most extensive ateliers. Evening dress in green satin and tulle, sumptuous robes of velvet, and cloaks of embroidered birds with the parrot’s plumage predominating are being prepared for the winter festivals. Even our hats will be green, but chiefly in tulle. There has been something abnormal in the materials worn both in summer and winter of late years, and we are no more surprised to find that tulle is to be the fashion in January than we were at the wearing of felt hats in August. Velvet has trimmed mousseline de soie, and fur has been married to laoe for many a day, and nothing any longer surprises us in the decrees of fashion. We accept whatever takes our fancy, and tulle—green tulle—will he our delight. It is undoubtedly an extravagant whim for winter, but it has been brought about in the wish to help the milliners, who have had such a sad season with the constant rage for aigrettes and black velvet, for it will be well understood that women who have paid long prices for aigrettes take them back to their milliners and have them replaced on each hat they buy. Therefore, “Vive le tulle!" is the cry of the moment. The success at the Varietes is beyond all precedent, and, I must acknowledge, has surprised even the Parisians themselves. Without wishing to belittle the merits of MM, Robert de Piers and dc Caillavet’s comedy, "L'Habit vert,” there is every reason to believe that the dresses on the stage contribute in a large measure to the booking by women, which, it appears, is phenomenal. I admit that women in Paris are not as timid as they were, and that they are now frequently seen at the theatres without the, at one time, indispensable male. In the scene at the institute, where M, Brasseur, the actor, dons for the first time the “habit vert" and is received as an Academician, the stage is full of young and pretty women dressed by Cauet. This is a name that you may possibly hear for the first time, for it is a new firm of young dressmakers in the Hue de la Paix. Cauet is the essence of all that is Parisian, graceful, subtle in the art of dressmaking. Ho has suddenly risen to fame with these dresses in “L’Habit vert," and from a practical point of view he has charmed the Parisiennes who are planning to winter in the South. It is a most unusual state of things, and has been widely appreciated, for the gowns that Cauet has designed for the twenty ladies who appear at this fashionable function on the stage are all dressed in the coming summer fashions. Here are lace “casaquins," and mousselino de sole draperies, and charming embroideries just under the waistband, and lovely combinations of colour in the daintiest of embroidered lawns, and white dresses, one more tempting than the other, with original touches at the sleeve and in a fall of lace that only an artist can give and which makes the Parisian dress so fascinatingly . unique. Women talk as women will of this new firm, and one and all are studying their budget and are intending to have something designed for themselves. Por it has been whispered that Cauet, although exquisite, is not exorbitant. I happened to see an evening dress that has been ordered for a coming celebration of which all Paris is talking, and cannot help describing it

here. It was a dream in mousselme de -0i1.'., of some indefinable shade of pink contrived by the superposing of shades. It had a twining arrangement of brilliant printed silk that fell in a train at the back, but it was the bodice with its soft transparencies of muslin over the finest of lace that captivated me. The dressmaker who designed this is not of the ordinary run, and the address, 6, Ene do la Paix, is worth remembering.