LONDON AND NEW YORK BECOME WORLD’S FASHION CENTRES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 124, 7 November 1941, Page 41

LONDON AND NEW YORK BECOME WORLD’S FASHION CENTRES

INCE Paris fell her mantle. has descended upon London, and London, according to English designers, is now the fashion centre of the world. English designers therefore, balked at home by the system of clothes rationing, are concentrating their attention upon the market of the Americas. Those romantic and completely impractical tulle-and-sequin evening creations are apparently finding a ready market among wives of South American coffee kings, but in the United States the chief demand is for English tweeds. Tweed jackets with elbow length sleeves are featured by one fashion designer, and each suit is completed by its own long stocking knitted gloves, with suede palms, which draw up over the elbows. Most English suits for the new season show pockets of interesting shapes, usually double ones. As there is a shortage of fasteners, many frocks and suits have bodices laced up in contrasting colours. And the shortage of felt or straw for hat-making has resulted in most suits and frocks shown by English fashion houses being accompanied by hats of the same material, ------ EEE ee

Meanwhile, according to the news magazine Time, American designers have been getting busy, and recently unveiled for the first time thé American-woman-packaged-in-the-United States. This packaging differs from Parisian packaging in several respects. It is not so dramatic. Every Paris collection had some spectacular clothes that

were bought only by exhibitionists, but which made headlines. American designers are presenting good wearable saleable clothes, but little for exhibitionists or oglers. Last year’s Manhattan openings, following soon after the demise of Paris, tried to establish New York as the fashion centre of the world, but the

luxurious fabrics were French and the clothes were admittedly Paris inspired. This year the fabrics (good and traditional) are American-made, And the designers have had to depend on their own ingenuity. Ingenious Touches ' This ingenuity shows itself chiefly in slender skirts with slits or "back droops" which fall much lower behind than in front; front peplums to give fullness to tight skirts; the "deep armhole cut" and "soft shoulder" (see illustration). Highlights from the latest collections of leading designers are: Fishtail hem lines on daytime dresses. Slim, slit skirts with back dip, rounded shoulders, deeper armholes. Pre-1914 tendencies with silhouettes narrowing at the bottom, peg-top evening skirts, slim skirts slit to the knee, and general up-in-front, down-in-back movement. Men’s tie silk for formal dinner gowns; men’s sleeve lining for suit blouses. Elizabethan touches in the form of high standing collars on evening gowns, . capes, daytime suits, : Near East inspiration, with them harem skirts and tent-pole silhouettes. Net impression of the showings is that this season’s American-designed clothes are not much different from the best clothes of yesterday, have no new magic. On their first real test, U.S. designers pass, but get ho "A" for originality.