FASHION’S DECREE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 October 1939, Page 8

FASHION’S DECREE

FIGURES MUST STILL BE SMOOTH. It’s a wise woman who is not misled by the general fulness and freedom of the new styles into thinking she can cast her foundations to the four winds. For the whole secret of the charm of the new clothes lies in their trimness and youthfulness—trimness where even a slender woman finds it hard to keep trim—the waist and diaphragm. The built-up waistlines. moulding so closely, are mercilessly revealing. And unless she leads the life of a young athlete, a woman is bound to have a fleshy roll or two there, to spoil the general slickness of line.

Then there is the bosom. The new clothes love to accentuate it. Bodice gatherings and ruchings and short bolero effects demand a beautiful bosom, and the new “youth movement” demands that it be held high and youthfully. You can see this difference in the new brassieres themselves. They have deeper and more beautifully shaped cups than has been seen before.

And now the hips. The fashionable fullness there is a snare and a delusion. Yes, you would erpect it to conceal bulges, but actually it is not Iso obliging. Pleated and flared skirts have an unflattering tendency to make one very hippy, so those who are a little big already will need all the swimming down that a good foundation can give them. And finally, no swing skirt can swing sweetly and smoothly from bumpy hips. As for tailored clothes, even though the skirts are no longer pencil straight, bad points of the figure cannot hide under the smooth fit of the tailleur. And their impression of freedom and casualness is by no means achieved casually. The figure still has to be smooth to be smart. To try to wear any of the new free and easy styles without one of the new foundations designed to understudy their slimming down that a good foundathe smartness and appeal that lies in them. Because of the accent on waist smoothness, women are looking for controlettes this season, who before would not deviate from two-piece control. Manufacturers have foreseen this and created a collection of controlettes of a variety of style, fabric and design that is simply bewildering. There are some really exquisite garments which, for all their soft looks, will work marvels before your eyes. The secret of most of the general suppleness in the new foundations is fabric boning. We did have this feature last year, but only tentatively. That is to say, fabric boning was used only in the backs of foundations; and so sweeping was its success that now, if you’re anything less than a size 44 and you’re still wearing foundations with metal bones at the back, Paris would definitely label you “backward.” Early this year, corsetieres perfected the use of fabric boning in other parts of the foundations, and as a result, some of the wrapons and controlettes in the new collections will be the “boneless wonders of 1940.”