MATERIALS RATIONED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 July 1940, Page 6

MATERIALS RATIONED

GERMAN FASHION FRONT. GLASS SHOES FOR CINDERELLA. According to an overseas writer, Dame Fashion is having a thin time in war-time Germany. American newspaper correspondents say that Party publications Storm against Parisian styles as being ’•unfit and degrading to German mothers.'” The obstacles in the way of being chic on one rationed dress a year arc intensified by a shortage of all the tilings which women need to make new dresses out of old ones—sewing silk and lining; attractive buttons are almost impossible to get. and leather handbags can’t be bought at all.

New ideas have been launched by the Frankfort Fashion Centre to solve women's pride, the centre being as important to German women as the Rue de la Paix to Parisians. Fashion has turned into an old Mother Hubbard. Her dog is hungry because German fashion leaders have taken his bone to make- her an ersatz blouse. The leather shortage is being solved by making women's shoes out of glass. Like Cinderella's, they arc made of hard, unbreakable glass, said to be equal to the best leather. Several seasons ago Parisians saw glass shoes allied with sheer stockings, but the German Cinderellas will have to put up with heavy lisle. New materials are being launched in an enormous popularity drive. Matte from fish skins, they are the product of a tannery near Offenbach. Cod. salmon, and perch are considered the most suitable skins, and when made into a material and ironed, do not shrink. About thirty salmon skins are needed to make enough material for a biouse. T. is made up so that the seaming is an essential part of the design.