MORE IN FASHION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 April 1940, Page 8

MORE IN FASHION

THAN MEETS THE EYE. WOMAN AND THE WAR. War may shape fashion, but never has it been able to destroy it. Its roots strike far too deep into the very instincts. the very psychology of woman. There is more in fashion than meets the eye. j A woman who is well-dressed is fulfilling her destiny, being herself, at the height of her powers, and that bring' her a feeling of content and wellbeing. Looking her best, she will face anything more cheerfully and with I greater fortitude. Shabby, she is halfbeaten already. That is why in England and France there is a definite campaign among women not to let up on beauty. The Queen herself sets the example. No uniform eclipse for her. Feminine to her finger tips, she appears everywhere in charming, feminine clothes. This ‘beauty as usual’ policy is the reason why women are clinging so determinedly to corsets this time, instead of hysterically casting them overboard, with all other restraint, as they did in the last war. With plainer, more practical clothes, good lines become more important. And no figure, however perfect, can present a good lino for clothes without a foundation. Those foundations are proving the most diverting thing in the whole fashion scene at the moment. They give women the most charming silhouette they’ve had in a generation; small. | feminine waists made to look still I smaller by contrast of curving hips ■ and high, wide bosom. The bosom has never been more frankly defined, more beautifully in the spotlight. Even the fiat-chested and dispirited will discover a shape. There are brassieres of ultra design from the States to take care of all that, even for women in this country. And what those shapely trifles of satin and lace can do to a sagging or incipient bosom has to be seen to be believed.

Meeting the demand for extra freedom, without loss of support, foi the more active and more exacting lives of wartime women, are superb control fabrics that help women do without bones, or without so many bones, in their foundations. This doesn’t imply any slackening of control; simply that, war or no war. research, invention and experiment in the world of corsetry goes coolly, calmly on, creating for women the beauty to be brave.