Paris Chants Its Winter Story

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 361, 23 May 1928, Page 4

Paris Chants Its Winter Story

Dance and Bridge Autocrats

Dancing: and bridge are still tlie : amusements which prevent conversa- \ 'tion. There are no new things to say about bridge. The good players are j insupportable to the bad players, and : the bad players drive the good players to say things which would be better left unsaid. It is the same with bridge, as with every other so-called game. it is hard work, and if one is poor at it, then the best thing to do is to refrain. This attitude is the only way to keep one’s money and one’s friends. W hat non-players do resent, however, is the superior attitude which the players take up with them. Why should one play bridge, or anything else, if one prefers to sit aside, and let the world go by with all its antics? Toleration in players of games, no matter whether they play bridge, boxing or just anything at all, is rarely found. One hates to be treated as a pariah, just because one does not know the meaning of some sports jargon. But, where am I? Ah, dancing! There is no need to say all I have said all over again. But it applies. The new dancers who call their performance by new names—the houli, the passetto—are trying to drive the tango, the yale, and the fox-trot out of the ballroom. It appears that eleven new dances have been introduced by the dancing experts, but dancing experts, like dressmakers, have to wait and see which of their creations will take tlie fancy of society. We shall see. Women are wearing black felt hats a great deal this season, and the leading milliners declare that they are making nothing else at the moment. One model made by a modiste of great reputation has been extensively copied, and is 'to be seen at all fashionable gatherings. It is a black felt chapeau, with a moderately sized brim, and has, for a trimming, a single ornament, generally a diamond or pearl brooch, finished by a narrow lace veil, falling just over the wearer’s eyes, like a loop, or narrow masque. Oddly enough, black is in great demand for dresses and mantles, and at a large dance-dinner recently there was a black dress at every table—black satin, black marocain, black georgette, black tulle, or black chiffon, with only jewels for relief. All the beautiful materials rich colours; brocaded, embroidered or painted, are neglected in this sudden return to the vogue of black. The present trend of clothes sends one, extravagantly—or so it would l

I seem, to an ancestor —to buy, not a best dress, to be hung away m a proj tective closet, but the best sort of I dresses to meet the needs of every day. We like to look as nearly our best +< we can at all times, knowing the value of the vanities that do not seem like vanities, as well as vanities that do. A pleasing appearance, how far it goes. So we find apparel simple in line, and as superior as we can afford in texture —at a price once undreamed of—which may be worn at almost any period of any day. And other apparel not so very different at the moment, in general line, or even in colour, will serve for any entertainment, for an afternoon-dance, a restaurant dinner, and the theatre. We no longer name all our frocks for the various entertainments to which we take them. A so-called ball-dress is not what it was, a tiling of tulle, as perishable as snow in a hot room. It is made of softly-falling or widely - spreading, not - too - easilycrushed fabrics, and its lovely colours do not of necessity soil easily. It has little miniature trains, or trails, or tails, which can easily be caught up out of the way for dancing. We do not dine and go to the theatre in one sort of gown and dash home to change before a ball. If there are any grand occasions nowadays we take them quite as a matter of course, and seldom spare ourselves to extra effort. We just endeavour to be well-dressed. Dancing and dressing go hand in hand, and let me put upon record that, as for the clothes we dance in this season, the one supreme, outstanding fact, inevitable, undisguisable, is the charming fluffiness and airy-fairyness of the Eternal feminine. The riglt winter frock may be of stuff so seemingly solid and sensible as black velvet, the right summer frock may be of the tulle, chiffon or any other sheer material —but so elusively slender are its proportions, that the nuance of its presence only accentuates the miles of white skin, that, in its own modest, retiring way, serves so exquisitely to show it up, and off. Woman is barelegged to the knee; bare-armed, and bare-backed to the waist, and the whole bareness is counter-balanced and accentuated by fluffy panels, fluffilydraped hips, filmy scarves! However slight and exiguous elsewhere, no frock at the moment does anything but fluff and froth, in lace or tulle, or feathers, over the hips, thereby, of course, proclaiming itself as not v of yesterday, but to-day.