IDEAS FROM PARIS

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20733, 17 February 1939, Page 3

IDEAS FROM PARIS

LOW CUT DECOLLETAGEB (From a Correspondent) I am writing this from Paris, where every dressmaker is showing midseason clothes. These look far ahead and for that reason alone are delightful to see. But I find few T er ideas snaffled from the Naughty Nineties. Hardly any which suggest the magnificent days when Victoria was a young and happy matron. What remain now are just charmingly vague suggestions of those periods which any modern woman can easily wear, more especially in the evening. Though I prophecy that if the very low cut decolletages are to be a success we had better start for a fattening diet, for they are in to stay, probably for a fairly long time. But if you heartily dislike a full skirted, low cut frock, and feel happier in the slim dress and trim jacket more suited to modern manners (and our modern idea of walking), you can throw up your hat and cheer. After having neglected you disgracefully two months ago the dressmakers have now made some delightful frocks after your own heart. Business Woman’s Gown I saw one purple dress, with a sleeved bolero in the same colour which fitted so well that I thought it was cut in one with the frock. Beneath that was a pmk mauve front tied on with a sash and cut fairly high at the neck, and this, when removed, showed a low-cut decolletage. It was just the sort of practical outfit which a business woman would choose for a cocktail party, for dinner afterwards, and for a dance after that. It would easily go into a suitcase if she had to change at the office, and she could park the “spare” parts on her chair without causing eyebrows to be raised. Then there are the new jackets which Jean Desses invented—cut almost. tike a man's smoking jacket, but embroidered with sequins in designs like (a) checks, (b) tartans, (c) herringbone tweed. Sometimes the jacket is of organza, occasionally of thin wool, but it always matches the dress. As most women love the glitter and magnificence of sequins, and as the ordinary sequin embroidered jacket is 100 lavish to be worn often, the new models are due for a big success, I think.

Another thing which will please you is the beautifully cut, classically tailored suit for the daytime, complete with tailored shirt, and exquisitely made cravat. Try this sort of outfit with a straw* or felt Homburg, the brim very much curled up at the sides, and wear a veil over your face and hanging down your back. I long to plunge into a discussion at this point about why there are so many strictly tailored suits shown side by side with ultra feminine clothes. It does seem to me that this is a very interesting phase of fashion to-day, and there must be a moral in it somewhere, if only I could find it. Swept Up Hair to Remain By the way, if you’ve been wondering whether Die new up-at-the-back hairdressing styles are going to last, it may interest you to hear that 1 have been doing ;l little investigating among the coiffeurs at Paris. Now, although the number of women here—ordinary women, not the ultra-ultra-chic type—who are ignoring this new fashion is enormous, all the hairdressers say that the style will remain and catch on, but most of them insist that the hard line at Die back will have to be altered. J should not be surprised to see women cutting their hair short again and curling it in clusters above the forehead and up the back, so that they get the same hmh line as they do