FRILLS FADS & FOIBLES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 200, 12 November 1927, Page 19 (Supplement)

FRILLS FADS & FOIBLES

Topics and Trifles

Freaks of Fashion .. The New Make-Up . . About Bags . . “Real” Buttonholes i A LETTER FROM LONDON

LONDON, Oct. 6. The first wild rush of dress shows is over. One emerges with a confused sense of having seen too much of everything: a sort of fashion indigestion, writes a London corespondent. Which reminds me that lunching the other day at the house of a doctor the talk was ail of thinning diets. The theme arose because one guest had announced that she was obliged to bring her own lunch. This turned out to be eight large oranges, of which she drank the juice. Fourteen oranges a day is a mere nothing, it seems—but you need only take this diet two days in each week. “Banting,” said the doctor, “is bad. but taking the average ‘thinning pills’ is worse.” PRETTY WEDDING DRESS Among the freaks of fashion is the use of ermine tails as a trimming for wedding dresses. The prettiest wedding dress seen in London for a long time is the one made at Eve Valere’s for Miss Marjorie IDu Pre. Parchment satin beaute, with a long pointed bodice and full skirt, had a girdle of flat pearls and diamante, a spray of ivy in these finishing it on one side. Betweendhe scallops of the skirt as the bride walks

will be glimpses of a silver lace over oink underskirt. A helmet-shaped trellis-work cap of the flat pearls, with orange blossom over each ear, finishes the ensemble. BAGS FOR BRIDESMAIDS I went with a bridegroom-to-be to choose bags for the bridesmaids at a little bag shop in Grosvenor f-treet where they specialise in making bags for people from their own material it they wish.' The bags he chose were perfect-—made of a wonderful handwoven Persian silk in blue and silver and white, with little silver lings fo hold the handles of the same material. Thev told me here that many people were reverting to bags that at first sight look perfectly plain. The 10% e.iest black slipper satin, set in a silver-gilt mount, just revealed, if >ou looked hard, a tiny piping of black patent leather at the seams. Anotliei ha l ' was made of black lelt to match a hat, a large shape with envelope folds in it. and just a touch of coral colour on the fastening. Another bag was made ot a woollen Rodier material, with pipings ot crocodile to match a suit. This had a tortoise shell mount.

Jet and onyx are two terribly smart things to put, in the form of a stud or two or a buckle, on a white cloth bag. They are used, too. in the very long, narrow pochettes of black satin people are carrying. Jet is coming back to us. So you know in time to acquire all the bits you see in second-hand shops or the button-boxes of your elderly aunts. The popularity of the parchment shades for wedding dresses and evening frocks has given a fillip to the dark complexion again. At Fay Compton’s new beauty salon they told me that two-thirds of the people who are going in for their “Beauty in 20 minutes” treatment want dark powder and cream and rouge. Even lipsticks are darker than they used to be. GARDENIAS AND ORCHIDS “What is that scent you are using?” I asked someone at the dress parade Irfe, otherwise Prince Yousoupoff, gave in the Devonshire Restaurant—but the scent came from real gardenias. And then I met Fay Compton, who had been dashing up from Birmingham every day to teach her pupils, wearing a spray of real orchids in her fox fur. and, lunching at the Embassy, two pretty girls were wearing real roses.

It won’t be a cheap fashion —but you can keep a real buttonhole three days if you are careful, and put a bit of an aspirin tablet in the water and keep them in the dark. POPULAR RED Red is in. Everyone was asking the ! identity of one woman at a dress show j who wore a bright scarlet jersey suit, ; with a spray of flowers done in the tiniest stitches embroidered on it just on the shoulder. A quite plain black felt helmet was crushed down on her brows and she was smoking cigarettes ! in a long black holder. It was Mrs. John Cragie, who gives such very ! amusing parties. Miss Elizabeth Pon- ; sonby was wearing red. too —a very ! dark one in angora, with a narrow , black scarf bordered with red. There is a new “movement” in hats. The skull cap has become rather commonplace. so velvet hats, with tight, round, stiff bands to fit on the head and ! rather soft crowns of elaborately gath- ; ered or ruched velvet, are replacing • them. Sometimes the crown is in broj cade, and so circular that it gives j rather a Chinese effect. Lady Win- | Chester was wearing one of these at a [London dress show the other day, [