FRILLS FAADS & FOIBLES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 188, 29 October 1927, Page 19 (Supplement)

FRILLS FAADS & FOIBLES

The Evolution of the Woman Motorist DISCREET FASHIONS OF 1915 The Modern Expert’s Outfit AUGUST, 1915, can’t, by any stretch of imagination, be called really remote. And yet we must have moved rapidly since then, ffer an article I have been reading in an issue of the “Light Car and Cycle Car” of that date really seems to belong to another lifetime. It brings it home to me, at any rate, how little the motor was, in those days, a part of our daily life, says a writer in an English paper. “Looking Attractive When Motoring” the article is called, and the title itself sounds strange, and why? Because, obviously, we don’t nowadays array ourselves in any special way for motoring! Our ordinary clothes are perfectly adapted to it, and our hats and hair might have been invented for it. (Perhaps they were.) But listen to what the 1915 ladies had to do about it.

WHEN HATS WERE PINNED ON o£ beach with a hat "pinned securely” . on the top of your chignon! It is advisable to aim at a trim, .. . , workmanlike appearance, neither un- No veil ts necessarj'. and if a narduly masculine nor unduly theatrical. F, ow v vel Y et ribb ? n , is . hrs } , rourd A neat, close-fittting hat, trimmed with th ® be f, d - no hairnet will be rea flat cockade or bow of bright f i uirecl * coloured ribbon, can be pinned securely That must have been a great comto the head, and will remain firm at fort to them. It would have been a any rate of speed.” pity to endanger the effect of the Bless their hearts! Imagine the bright bow or flat cockade, effect of half a mile on a long stretch Another dazzling scheme is sug-

j gested: “I have seen a long coat of I coarse green-blue homespun, fastened j with large, smoked pearl buttons, and worn with a little hat of gauged waterI proof silk, trimmed with a tuft of : jay’s feathers.” After that, as after j seeing Naples, I should think one might ! die happy. ‘A jockey cap shaped hat | can be had in velvet, silk, or waterI proof material, and looks in very good taste.” Also, “a beautiful velour check I coat fashioned in the Early Victorian j coachman style, with big buttons, mili- ; tary pockets, and full skirt, is a very desirable garment to possess.” I won’t say you were absolutely instructed to wear the last two gari ments together, but the horsey suggestion seems to invite them. Then there j were ‘‘neat veils with mica windows, j which prevented dust, flies, etc., from finding a resting-place in one’s coiffure.” Lovely! Every woman her own saloon car, in fact! But the most amazing part was where you were quite seriously instructed what “expression” to assume when motoring. “This,” we were told, “is where most women fail utterly and hopelessly.” One class “drives with the fixed and determined expression of a man leading a forlorn hope; her teeth are clenched, her jaw is set, and generally she wears a most ferocious aspect.” Another assumed “too supercilious a demeanour” for the occupant of a mere light car. Apparently the position of your eyebrows was to be regulated by the horse-power you controlled. But no quotations can give you such a good idea as the illustrations, which unfortunately it is impossible to reproduce here. One jaunty passenger, with a little French sailor hat perched sideways on a piled-up chignon, has the long ends of the ribbon hatband streaming gaily behind in the breeze. Again, there are

“suggested motoring outfits.” A summer one, with its ankle-length white linen coat buttoned (to the chin) with black buttons, and side-tilted Panama with black cockade, is only eclipsed by a voluminous winter suit of tweed worn with cloth-topped boots and a gauged silk hat, with tuft of jay’s feathers complete.

Ah, me! Feminine clothes may be efficient and practical to-day, but for real, gorgeous picturesquoness, give me the motoring modes of August, 3 915!