LADIES DRESSES.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 248, 17 February 1875, Page 3

LADIES DRESSES.

(From the Globe.) Coming events east their shadows before, and if fashion has any influence upon Fahrenheit, we are likely to have a winter of great severity. The Paris dress designers have already made their arrangements for it, and the last novelties are revealed to an expectant public. For the last few years the milliner’s idea has been to dress her customers as like men as ] ossible, to give them stand-up collars and leather belts, to ann them with umbrellas hanging from the waist as if they were swords, to supply them with gentlemen’s watch-pockets and gentlemen’s watch-chains. Even in fashion the world must advance, and the move for the coming winter is decidedly a move forward. Fashionable ladies, who have been dressed like men, must now dress like wild animals. All the new tissues are to resemble furs, and as a few years ago young ladies werp said to wear Dolly Vardens, so now they will put on their “ camels.” That is the generic name by which the Parisian modistes have called this year’s fabrics, though of course there is a variety allowed, and a young lady may appear as a reindeer, as a bear, as a northern elk—in fact, as any roughskinned animal she may select. But it is necessary that the skins should consist of as few pieces as possible. The “ camel,” and a collar which will be known in the fashionable world as a dog’s collar, will complete the costume. But this new invention of the French dressmakers has not so much originality after all. The idea is merely a development of the Ulster great-coat, which was borrowed a couple of years ago from the Irish peasantry. This desire for the roughest materials and the rudest make has produced already strange results. In Switzerland Englishmen are dressed so like guides, it is difficult to distinguish them. Even at Brighton the taste for walking-sticks has declared that a perfectly plain bit of ash cut out of the wood and innocent of scraping and varnishing is the most fashionable cane. A silver ornament is allowed near the handle as a sort of trade mark to show that it belongs to a gentleman. Even if the winter of 1874 should be as inclement as that of 1870, there may yet be days when the “ camel ” would be too warm, and so less heavy garments have to be prepared. Still the relations with the animal world will be kept up. Ladies when they cannot go out like beasts, will go out like birds. All trimmings are to be made of feathers — cocks’ feathers, pheasants’ feathers, peacocks’ feathers. This plumage is to cover the dresses, but a whole bird will be the hat. A very fashionable lady may, therefore, assume a parrot’s head and a peacock’s tail.

Masked balls are becoming very fashionable in London. One of the most successful was lately given by Lady Marian Alford, and was an extraordinary affair. The Prince and Princess of Wales were there, and everyone in the West End. To prevent mistakes, it had been arranged that married ladies should wear red feathers in their hair, and unmarried white ones; but no provision was made for distinguishing married men, so that some really melancholy mistakes occurred, since 'the men all wore dominoes which hid the face. In more than one instance it was reported that both husbands and wives flirted with each other unwittingly with great ardor till supper time, and masks were removed, when disclosures of great interest took place, and sundry sarcastic remarks were made. On the whole, the ball proved more agreeable to the hostess than to some of the guests.