Fading Age of Beauty Postponed

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1054, 19 August 1930, Page 5

Fading Age of Beauty Postponed

Women Far Lovelier Than 20 Years Ago an artists conclusion Woman's beauty fades less rapidly today than it did. for instance, 20 years ago. This is the conclusion reached by Mr. Philip Conrad, R.A., a leading portrait painter, in an article in the “Daily Mail.” Til my opinion, the “fading age” of woman’s beauty has been indefinitely postponed, says Mr. Conrad. Modern life is a conspiracy in favour ot younger, more active, more intelligent and more beautiful women; but it is an open conspiracy in which both *exes frankly engage. Men like it; women cannot help it, and there you. are! I am astounded at the beauty I see in the woman of today—to‘such an extent, indeed, that when I look back on my own youth I say to myself: “Either you were a silly young fool when you were young or women have

grown muck more beautiful than they were.” They' are far lovelier than they were. I know women who have improved in looks considerably between the forties and fifties. It is quite true that at the age of thirty a woman goes through a kind of transition stage. Her figure may change—if she allows it to!—but exercise, occupation, personal freedom, and the artistry of fashion have practically abbolished the matronly type of woman as we knew her a generation ago. Short skirts, pretty legs and ankles, and the skilful use of make-up take her many years past the time when we assumed that a woman’s youth was over. I cannot say that l regard women as natural artists in beautifying themselves, although I know that sometimes they are brilliant at it, but the real artists are those who convey the suggestion that they may or may not be made up, and leave you in poetic doubt on the matter. But you have no doubt whatever that, one way or another, this is still a beautiful woman and may remain one indefinitely. Roughly speaking, I would say that our modern women are amazingly rejuvenated by the civilisation in which they find themselves. They are enjoying a fuller and a far more natural life, to begin with, and they realise that it contains a large number of amusing things besides marriage (if that is amusing) and bringing up a family. The youthfulness and beauty of the women to be seen on the skating rinks —and women of all ages, too—strikes me as extraordinary. Even the pictures of women tennis players which you see in the newspapers show them in amazing and lovely attitudes which fill the mind with wonder.

What a change for the better, for a y'ounger and more daring spirit, compared with her predecessor of Victorian times! Years ago every woman hooked herself into corsets to acquire a pretty figure—and nobody' was deceived. Today she does without them —and nobody is deceived either. On the contrary, everybody- is impressed. Not only r that, but women are infinitely' more intelligent, and that is why they are better looking—the energy of their thoughts, the capacity for action and decision, come through in their faces. The greater intellectual and physical freedom of modern life has turned them into a younger, more vigorous and more beautiful race. The heavily made-up and amply powdered women of the Gainsborough period, the French beauties of Watteau’s and Boucher’s time, were extraordinarily' attractive, but they were completely matured ty-pes. But in the eighteenth century women were nothing like so restrained as they were in the Georgian and Victorian periods, and for that reason they' were seemingly more attractive. They let themselves go. Modern women, it seems, also let themselves go, and it makes them definitely more attractive, too. Women who are not only allowed to think and act for themselves hut for others also are bound to keep younger. We see the fact proclaimed from end to end of the social scale. I am not at all sure that women, by regarding age as unimportant, have not abolished its significance for themselves. Personally, I regard the prolonging of youth and all the beauty that goes with it as perfectly natural, and if a woman of forty tries to look like a woman of thirty—so much the

better. It preserves at least one of the illusions necessary to existence. But finally I come to the conclusion that women remain beautiful for a longer time nowadays for the same reason as a great many men remain young—by having a job to do which absorbs them and a freedom to live which inspires them. If a man has a real job be does not have time to think of his age, hut has got to consider himself still young at ninety, and even then believe that he lias a hundred years before him.

Nobody could convince me today •that women tend to lose their looks at this or that particular age, for I have only to step out into the street to see that this is pre-eminently the age of elegance. Woman’s beauty does not fade, it merely changes. Whether it is an exquisite old lady or a girl of nineteen, each carries her individual preservative of charm, and in the last resort her beauty is what y r ou yourself perceive in her. A woman who is once seen to be beautiful remains so. It is only the vision of the beholder that fades.

Here are three attractive day dresses that are sure to please the woman in search of originality. The first, in stone-coloured ring velvet with a self check, is made demurely piquant by means of a deep berthe collar of ivory satin, with cuffs en suite. The model in the centre is materialised in plumcoloured crepe satin, tucked at the waist and pleated in front of the skirt; this has chemisette and sleeve puffs of tucked beige georgette. Figured ring velvet is used for the third frock, which is cut on cross-over lines and finished with a pretty stand-up neck frill of pale coffee - coloured organdi.