WHAT WE WOMEN THINK

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 6, 21 August 1931, Page 32

WHAT WE WOMEN THINK

Good Old Cardigan. OR small incomes and semi-forma! occasions the cardigan coat, with Sleeveless matching blouse and simplyfashioned skirt, is now almost a standardised ensemble for all manner of . fabrics, including fanciful cottons, voiles and the more elaborate painted materials, The shorter jackets. are smart, too, but they do mean more difficult cutting, and, therefore, are not such a practical choice for many as the bodice or blouse with the new little top-sleeves and a bolero or short capecoatee. These are all delightfully easy and becoming to young and slim figures. Again, it is one of the best styles for the many inexpensive cottons and voiles that are so becoming in the newer schemes for girls, The cotton evening dress appears at many smart functions in London, though it will take longer to become an established model for the country house, where it veally should be more in harmony! A Protest. "Mz trouble," said a girl of twenty, "is this. I have very young and charming parents, who insist on being the life and soul of everything. We cannot have a party without them. They will be young with us, and as they call it, ‘lead their children’s lives and share their amusements.’ The result is, they take all the wind out of our sails and make us feel like infants. My mother has so much charm and sophistication and experience that I become like a shadow when she is around. T wich

they would give up dancing and take to bridge." Paris Protests. B2!11se visitors who go to Barbizon, south of Paris, the home of Francois Millet, whose picture, "The Angelus," is known the world over, will be shocked to find that the landscape has been disfigured by a huge advertisement. The scene hitherto has remained the game as when Millet painted it... the same broad sweeping, field, the same soft horizon, the little church, and the same type of simple peasants leaning over their implements in prayer, could be seen by a visitor. Thousands of tourists, attracted by the name of Millet, Corot, Barye and others of the Barbizon hamlet, visited the place each year, Millet’s home is kept much the same as it was when he was alive. Until recently the countryside was still a touching souvenir of the last half of the nineteenth century. Now, right in the middle of the view as seen in Millet’s picture, appears a blatant advertisement of a popular cocktal ingredient made by a French distiller! The Insensitive Sex. TA CORRESPONDENT writes: I am glad that we can now get definite information about the cruelty involved

in supplying us with furs. It is known that every year millions of fur-bearing animals struggle in traps for hours, and often days, suffering excruciating agony, in order that we women may clothe ourselves in furs, Is it worth it? These are facts, and let no woman who reads them say to herself, "I am not to blame." Stitch in Time. Borsa hand and machine embroidery are mucn in evidence as trimming of frocks o* the smarter kind, evea spots are worked in satin or chain Stitch, not printed. On plain material frocks, collay, euffs and vests are shown in spotted fabric, which is especially effective when the spots are worked just where needed. Bold applique designs in satin or velvet show up effectively on the skirt or coatee of a black frock, and give the requisite colour touch, or a_ simple border may be worked in some bright colour on a flounce. Such simcame

ple stitches as buttonhole, herringbone, or blanket stitch are even worked in a contrasting colour on the edges of frills and flounces. Linen frocks show applique and other embroidery in another colour, white or navy or red and navy or green on white being most effective. The same applies to lingerie of crepe-de-chine or linen lawn, which shows charming little designs in contrasting colour that are frequently mingled with lace motifs. "Young Woodley" Among the Feminists. the frivolous-minded there was something rather amusing in the thought of Mr. Van Druten speaking about his successful "London Wall" to a large audience of feminists. Mrs. Corbett Ashby was in the chair, and the occasion purported to be a debateMr. Van Druten defending his play against a feminist attack on it made by Mrs. Amber Reeves. But the young dramatist’s bearing was faultless, and his exposition of how he came to write

"London Wall" and to choose the types for it was most disarming. The hard-est-hearted suffragist could find no cause for reproach or indignation, and Mrs. Reeves herself merely scolded him for ruining the life of the promising young man in his play by getting him engaged so early and so unpromisingly. "London Wall" is staged entirely in the chambers of a solicitor and concerns chiefly the four women typists who work there. Mr. Van Druten told that he himself, not so long ago, spent five years as an articled clerk in precisely the same surroundings as those he reproduced in his play. The idea for the plot was given to ‘him by a manicurist, who described the pathetic plight of two young sweethearts who had nowhere to talk to each other, whom she had seen saying goodbye to each other under the lilacs in the rain in the garden of a suburban apartment house. The conditions of the lives. of such young girls, typists "beginning" at 30/- a week and not living with their parents, interested him so much that he got the secretary of a friend to make him out the working budget. He read it. The rent of a furnished bed-sitting room shared with a friend came to 15/-, fares to and from work 5/-, lunches 1/a day, all other meals 5/- a week, and "half a newspaper" 8d. Poor Fare. HERE have been recently on the London stage several meals with a character entirely their own. In "The Venetian" the supper seemed to consist entirely of grapes and nuts (and not too many of them) washed down with a glass of pink wine (poisoned or not) ;., f while the picnic luncheon at the shoot- + ing-hunting party in "Tantivy Towers," !" consisting of a few very thin sand-. wiches and a little flat champagne, would hardly satisfy even a dieting woman. Paris, The Prude! IN Paris there is quite a strong moyement in favour of decorum. This has been discovered by a hairdresser who, as an advertisement for his system of permanent waving, exhibited in his shop window a wax model of a nude woman arranging her hair before her dressing table. She was sitting in a decent and artistic attitude, and there seemed nothing about the exhibit to shock anyone who could make a tour of, say, the Louvre or any other art gallery. But protests were made, and now the wax model is clothed in a dressing gown. Critics of this change are wondering how long it will be before the Louvre authorities ave compelled to cloak the beauties of the Venus de Milo! ws Nostalgia for Sunny Spain. A CCOKNDIN G to an official who has lately returned from Fontainebleu, Don Alfonso has become very reserved and quiet. Absorbed in his thoughts, his sole interest seems to centre round the Spanish situation. A great change has also come over the Queen. She is much thinner, and repeats again and again that they ought never to havo left Madrid. They take no part in amusements, and their company is re- \ y) stricted to one or two aristocrats who *° have followed them in their exile. Thé Princesses have lost their bright looks, and speak constantly of Madrid, their friends, and the joyous atmosphere of Spain. The infantas spend most of the time studying in their rooms, and the health of the eldest grows worse ach. day.