PARIS FASHIONS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 April 1939, Page 8

PARIS FASHIONS

COLONIAL EMPIRE INFLUENCE. The voyage of M. Daladier to Tunis and Algiers has influenced French fat shions and looks like becoming more and more general. All the famous couturiers from the Faubourg St. Honore to the Avenue Montaigne are affected. One has produced an Algerian burnou (wide cape) and another Moroccan embroidery. Some of the famous milliners have launched the Tunisian cap, writes a French correspondent. Materials show ever increasing variety and it may be said that the keynote of the day is the plain silk crepemousse in green, reds, blue and pink. The charming twills, and printeds are of course far from being excluded, and a lot of amusing and strange patterns are the chief characteristic of. spring and summer dresses. For day wear, materials are covered with small pretty designs, little families of esquimaux placed in a dwindling , horizontal line; golf sticks, mathematical figures. A particularly original, one consists of vertical designs forming; stripes in different fresh colours breaking from place to place to show contrasting scenes such as a boat gliding on a blue sea and whose white sails are outlined on a mountain background; an exotic landscape with palm-trees and huts and a negro in a canoe; a cardinal in his red robes, and farther, a corner of a vegetable garden with a water-pot and a rake; etc. Then come delicate flowers, single or arranged in bouquets, spots, a great family of plaids, checks, stripes, and a multitude of new materials of the most wonderful combinations of colours, designs and reliefs. Stripes, which are so much in favour, are shown in a quite new way, with all pastel tints, frequently forming a lovely rainbow, each shade separated by a broad darker line. Stiff materials, like taffeta and faille, are in great favour for day and evening wear. From the first spring collections of the famous Parisian couturiers, fashions are particularly appealing this year. Boleros take a great part in couture and are generally like short jackets. Swing skirts make very juvenile dresses and ensembles, either pleated or flar.ed. For evenings, crinolines are little seen; a sort of bustle made of flounces at the back of dresses is a novelty. '