WOMEN’S WORLD

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20728, 11 February 1939, Page 24 (Supplement)

WOMEN’S WORLD

POOR AUNT MATILDA J BUT we strive to imitate her j Six carefree years ago ■women wore ! their hair in a' nice neat shingle or | boh, running a swift comb through it jat (metaphorically) dewy dawn and dusky eve; forgetting it in the blithe hours between. They were emancl- ' pated, they said, giving a sarcastic laugh when they viewed poor Aunt Matilda, circa 1900, complete with eighteen-inch waist, wispy top-knot, and chaste black velvet dog-collar, in the family photograph album. Going out in a dog-collar and a topknot of curls, surmounted by two blackbirds’ eggs from a collection of the son-and-heir, and a plume of pampas from the chi-chi vase on the again fashionable what-not. Twenty-one-inch waists are already spoken of with rapture; and evening frocks which are. slim for informal wear and plumped out with dear little crinoline petticoats for formal occasions. Now, what if the occasion happens to he one of those dubious affairs which may be either ? Well, dears . . . roll up the sweet little crinoline petticoat like an umbrella: fasten at each end with a stout rubber band; put it under your arms. Take a surreptitious glance at the assembly on arrival at the party. Tf tiaras, dash to the cloakroom and don your crinoline: if merely intelli- ! gentsia park it quietly in the umbrella stand. Thin End of Wedge Enough of trifling. Women of England! The. top-knot is the thin end of the wedge ... if we let the designers take the bit in their teeth and plunge back over centuries ... I shudder to think what the thick end may be. What may be revealed by the future ! My blood runs cold. . . . Take the oIT-the-shoulder neckline . . . It is innocent enough at present, but what of the similar fashion in the eighteenfifties. In the seventeen-sixties skirts were something like ten feet or more in diameter, and were held out at the hips by a hinged contrivance made of iron ribs. When one elegant female , met another in a narrow street', each j popped her hands down two slots in her skirt and lifted her hip pieces after j the manner of the Tower Bridge let- j ting a large vessel go by. It is easy to laugh and say, "We’ll never wear any of those absurd ideas again !’’ Fix years ago we never , thought of piling our locks on top and i trimming them with a demented bird nestling in a watered shoot . . . and as for a twenty-one inch waist and a demure look. . . . We must take up a firm stand. Thus far and no . . . but ... a thought strikes me! The high coiffures will be quite practical and too piercingly de- | corative when worn with a gasmask . . . and some bright couturier will probably design a combined bustle and portable air-raid shelter.