Fashion's Magic Touch Creates Appealing Styles

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 404, 12 July 1928, Page 3 (Supplement)

Fashion's Magic Touch Creates Appealing Styles

Uniformity Has Fled!

AS tlie dark curtains of winter part and swing aside this year, revealing suddenly a gay and colourful spring season, we shall see a vision of new fashions unrivalled and unattempted in any of the seasons past. This springtime Mademoiselle Fashion will not stride in with the bold assurance of a man, sleek of coiffure and monontonously plain of costume. Nor will the retinue that follows her look like a uniformed parade with merely the smallest details to distinguish one from another. All, no! Instead, fashion this spring will sweep into sight with a swaying grace, feminine in form, enchanting in loveliness and a startling creature of distinctive individuality. More than that, behind her will trip a laughing throng, each a picture of feminine enchantment, with fluttering skirts and windswept scarfs, colourful, vital and individual. Spring is coming!

Every monotonous rule has hurst, every drab mode has fled before the new dictates of fashion. Above all else, women are to be women again with alluring grace and somewhat more figure and soft clothing that flutters and sways with the movement of her body. Skirts have revolted against their stiff and unnatural tightness and with the exuberance of their new freedom have rushed often to extremes, of abandoned fullness. This season marks the beginning of a new epoch in fashions and a new attitude of smart women toward dress.

Away With Sameness Suddenly it has become unpardonably bad taste to appear down town in any costume that could properly appear in the country, or to attend a tea in the same costume that went shopping in the morning. Whatever we now do, we choose just the exact costume for that occasion and there is no compromise. More than tlidt, Madame A would not consider wearing what Madame Z will wear. Instead she cleverly selects the one costume that flatters her own colouring and figure. And when the group is assembled, we are almost bewildered to find no two women alike this year! Uniformity has fled. Of course, for street and daytime wear there is always a vague uniformity; for too obvious an individuality would have to be achieved at the price of good taste. Women still dress in simple and well-tailored costumes of serviceable materials. The smart materials this year are tweeds and then more tweed with homespuns for very smart variety. A few novelty

woollens are included and other fabrics, but then again we return to tweeds. But whatever the woollen, it is miraculously sheer and soft, for that is the unique characteristic of 1928 woollens. Naturally, too, for street wear we use a coat, and these smart coats now match either the dress or, with a skirt and blouse, make a suit. Fashion does not care whether the coat is short or long, threequarter or seven-eighths in length—all she demands is that it is to he part of a very well-planned ensemble. Alluring Velvets Whenever we do venture away from the ultra-modish and supremely popular woollens, we invariably tumble into a mesh of subtly printed

THE GIFT CORNER FOR ANYTHING BEAUTIFUL A business of interest to all women is that carried on by Miss Nancy Bostock, at the top of St. Stephen’s Avenue, Parnell, where is situated “The Gift Corner.” Miss Bostock sells in her shop a selection of goods that can only be described as “everything that is small, neat and beautiful.” She sells all sorts of dainty little articles, ranging from wicker baskets to the finest embroidery work, and including such widely varied articles as fancy coathangers, slippers and flowers. In fact it is safe to say that at “The Gift Corner” one can obtain anything for the boudoir or the trousseau. One very interesting department is the beaten copper and pewter ware, and the enamel and lacquer work, in which one can obtain all sorts of dainty things such as trinket and jewel boxes. Raffia work is there also on trays, handkerchief and tie boxes, purses and shopping baskets. “The Gift Corner” has also an interesting little stall at the Winter Show.

velvets and crepes. for they are the alpha and omega of the silk mode. Yes, occasionally a plain silk does appear, and quite correctly, but on the whole they are embossed except for night-time wear. The sport mode no longer overlaps the street mode. What we wear at the seaside or tlie country house is not at all the same thing we wear in town. Short little cardigan jackets are popular in the sport mode, gay and light colours in monotone as well as print, accessories which indulge in all manner of gay caprices and withal a very feminine, colourful trend.

But for afternoon we find the great-J est innovations. Where once we ex-; sisted without such a thing as an j afternoon dress, this season they make up a most important part of our correct wardrobe. We have afternoon wraps, if wraps we have at all, and afternoon dresses to go with those wraps. We interpret the ensemble in afternoon spirit. Even the hats become touched with more individuality and, indeed, dressiness. Our coats flare out and indulge in soft capes or drapes or scarfs—our frocks dip unevenly about the hem and most properly adopt lingerie touches of real lace —our frocks flutter and sway in their graceful fullness and over all is an elaboration and a dressiness unknown last year. When Night is Here And when evening comes, every new tendency breaks forth with a bewitched abandon. Skirts sweep to the floor in their new exaggeration and sway with a fullness unknown in years now. Even bustles appear and huge bows and loops. Scarfs and capes, flying ends and drapes all flutter plentifully while the ultra-sophisticated black gives place to more intriguing white and flesh, as well as all manner of gay colours. Taffeta and moire along with lace and tulle have made vivid inroads into the old supremacy of georgettes and chiffons while satin holds a mighty part. With this whole sweeping change, which brings versatility and femininity to the mode, it is ouiy natural that every phase of the mode has been affected. Hats and shoes and all accessories have been changed in the great revolution. Jewellery has risen from a smart asset to a most vital necessity. And in rising to this strangely new importance, it has become fascinating. It has become as versatile as the mode itself so that it can readily be blended with each individual costume. It has found expression in every colour so that it may match the ensemble completed. It has delved into real art and history in search for the individual and varied. And no costume is now complete without its distinctive and matching jewellery. The so-called frills of fashion have sprung into sudden interesting importance, feminine capes, innumerable scarfs, and gay wet weather brollies in their place; even wee veils have been summoned forth by fashion.