While The Kettle Boils

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 59, 9 August 1940, Page 38

While The Kettle Boils

Dear Friends, Last week we spoke of the necessity of keeping a sane, normal outlook during these troublesome times; and I suggested, as a solution, that we keep up our interest in dress. To-day I want to say something about style. Style? It is such a large term-it covers everything from a lift in skirts to the sway and turn of our locks. If we were quite honest, we would confess that it leads us by the nose, and that, in reality, we are willing victims. Let us reflect on style. Paris has always been the capital of the fashion world. It has issued its decree -and world’s women have hastened to obey. A girl stands forth in a fashion parade. Her hair spreads back in two raven wings -her classic white face looks as though it has run into a giant spider’s weband just by chance’a bird alights and rests on her forehead. So a new fashion is born-a hat. Other hats follow in its wake, tumbling gaily out of the season’s bandbox. New lines in frocks, new colours, make last season’s models out-dated. Frocks of 1940, with their svelte, stream-cut lines, are symbolic of our pre- sent age of speed-everything is on swift flowing lines. A new style, however, is not just an expensive fad that benefits only the few. Its actual creation and the sales that follow help a hundred others down the working scale-from the girl who models it to the little seamstress who sews the

humblest stitch; from textile mills to cardboard box factories. The leaders of fashion overseas play their part in the economic drama. Even when they powder their noses there is a reaction in a hundred factories throughout the world; a clamour in the markets where buyers and sellers match their wits, A woman and her whims keeps this mighty machine moving. One recalls that memorable occasion when a dye-making concern invented a new shade of red. "Give that exclusively to me," said Chanel, the great dress designer, "and I will make it famous." It was called Chanel red, and it became famous all over the world, minting fortunes for its creators and its entrepreneurs. However, everything is not clear sailing in the realm of fashion. For one style that clicks there are a dozen others that are tried and tossed aside. Style and fashion are both incalculable. A simple fashion will spring up overnight-and next day it will be on its way to becoming a world rage. Fashions overseas change officially twice a year. Spring and Autumn are the seasons when all the buyers gather at the famous Fashion Shows, and each change of style entails hundreds and millions of pounds. In America, clothing is the fifth greatest industry — and in England, the ninth. So next time your husband growls when you talk about buying a new hat just let him have these figures. If he is a reflective type of person they'll give him food for thought-and you a new outfit. Best of luck! yours cordially,

Cynthia