PARIS FASHIONS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 June 1938, Page 4

PARIS FASHIONS

NEW AND GRACEFUL IDEAS.

(From a Paris Correspondent). The birth of spring has given rise to a multitude of new and graceful ideas for the adornment of the Parisienne. Blouses made of lingerie, worked in tiny pleats or gatherings mixed with Valenciennes lace, open-worked, embroidered, or made of printed materials, white satin, muslin, lace, organdie, enhance the neatly cut tailormades which are sometimes trimmed with gazelle skin or snake. If one happens to wander in the morning through the elegant quarters of Paris, along the Champs-Elysees and beside the lovely beds of flowers of the Tuileries, around the Opera or the Madeleine Church, one will see many of the novelties; a very simple and charming yellow and white beltless tailor-made in “Alba” (a new woollen material in relief), a dark scarf and gloves, giving a very original note; another no less elegant in striped Saharian cloth fastening with three buttons, with slantwise pockets covered in white, like the collar, a white tassel set at each corner; and a white ensemble of equally simple outline whose coat and skirt edges are trimmed with big black stitches, is accompanied by a dark blouse to the hips with “fainting” stripes a white belt and a row of white buttons, making a very pretty contrast. In the afternoon, one will be surprised at the sight of the numerous tailormades and ensembles so different in personality, and one’s eye will be delighted at the vivid colours of the new materials, broadly patterned, printed or over-printed with little flowers delicately applied in rows on the edge of the blouse, on the little collar, and on the short sleeves. Contrasting effects are made in very artistics ways, mixed vivid colours, dark and light or pastels. Dresses are pleated or cloche, and whatever may be the material in which they are made, various details give them a note of great youth. Dark bows are set on the front of a reversible crepon dress, dwindling in size towards the waistline. Stripes are placed horizontally or vertically. Short and wide sleeves are to be seen; boleros and edge-to-edge scalloped coats in plain material over patterned frocks; short fur capes. Knitting, from being a simple homely work, has become of a great elegance, and a Parisian couturier has just presented in his collection a long and elegant deshabille, jan ensemble for the morning, a silk ensemble for cock-tail-time, and a long tailor-made, knitted with gold thread, of a great smartness for the evening.

At night, the picture frocks are in favour, some with their long straight outlines and others with great fulness requiring yards and yards of tule, chiffon, voile, organza, and most of them ornamented from the top to the hem with motifs highly worked in gathered narrow ribbons or lace, the latter taking an important place in fashions, as well for day as for evening wear. An original dress is made entirely of ribbons and has the waistline marked by a belt, and a wide sash passes over the hips to be amply knotted in a big bow on the front, simulating a second waistline. Often embroidered white lace in incrusted on very simply black dresses, either in a yoke effect running over wide long sleeves, tightening from the elbow, or edging a bare-shoulder gown, the same lace repeated on the edge of the black gloves. New hats are most attractive with their numerous shapes of crowns, pointed, round, irregular, and even some hats without. Kriitted hats accompany knitted ensembles. Small toques are ornamented with broad flowers on the front. Sailors have a veil set close to the face knotted in a big flowing bow at the back; but the black broad-brimmed Breton hat is a great novelty, trimmed with wide vels vet ribbon passing over the crown and through the brim with the end a loose knot.

Towards the end of April an exhibition of costumes of the seventeenth and eighteenth century was opened at the Musee Galliera, in Paris. This exhibition was organised by the city of Paris, in collaboration with the Societe de I’Histoire du Custome, of which the president is M. Maurice Leloir, who spent some time at Hollywood as adviser on ancient costumes. Besides single exhibits of both male and female wearing apparel, there were set pieces showing a lady of fashion of the seventeenth century seated before her elaborate dressing table, with her maid doing her hair,

another of Louis XIV. with his chess players and his musicians, and an interior in the style of a picture by Chardon, showing a mother, reading, surrounded by her children.