PARIS IN THE MIRROR

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 150, 21 December 1929, Page 21

PARIS IN THE MIRROR

1 (Written for "The Post" by "Germaine.")

PARIS, 23rd October. It looks as if a good deal of black was going to.be worn this season, and, of course, it is obvious that black is one of the best colours to dramatise the texture-contrast idea. Most Parisienncs have a yearning for black, and I have heard a good many Englishwomen expressing black thoughts lately. However, if you don't want to go in for the sombre hues borrowed from the raven's wing (as the romantic poetsused to say) there are some very thrilling browns—rather darkish browns. Most of them are reddish, one like cinnamon, one chocolatey, and one purplish, and one recalls our old friend negre, but is more orange in tone, while keeping very dark. Then there are the blues—navy, and the purplish— marine tones, a cool greenish-blue, and a whole series of warm, singing blues, the colour of tropical seas on a fair day, the colour of the air in the Blue Grotto, when the sun is shining outside. Lighter shades of this warm blue are also in- the early . winter collections. This colour shone in the costumes for the new ballet that-is in preparation for the opera. There it is used with scarlet-

red, which is decidedly in the autumn colours, so that it gave us visions of gatherings on chilly autumn nights where these two colours would meet and strike? sparks—they both are "electric" colours. Eeally, the main thing- to remember about the colours for autumn and printer, is that in your early autumn buying you are perfectly safe if you choose dark red, reddishbrown, or black. They will fit in with anything you will want to buy later in the season, and any of the three will be most unquestionably smart if worn with accessories of the other colours. TEXTURE HARMONIES. Texture harmonies are the newest, the most instructive centre of interest in the fashions at "present. I don't mean to give you the notion that textural contrasts or harmonies are a new discovery. All the good French creators have devoted a lot of thought and experiment to the problems offered by textures, just as much as to colour* harmonies. But it is borne on us-by the models that we see in the couturiers, by the talk we hear in the great fabric houses, and by the dressing of the very smart Frenchwoman, that texture harmonies are coming in for a star roll tins'season. Most of us, I think, have recognised the importance of textures in good dressing. You know the way that velvet makes the girls with a peach skin quality of complexion look perfectly melting, while a- fine-skinned woman need only drape velvet about her to make her look chilly and shiny like an over-polished piece of marble or an old-fashioned china doll. And certainly you have" some friend whose skin looks like parchment or sandpaper if she wears a. satin dress, but is perfectly grand in crepe georgette. THE COMBINATION OF TEXTURES. To-day the combination of textures is immensely varied. " There are already in the advance showings morning costumes with woollen coat and silk dress, both, of exactly the same shade of brown or beige, or blue or grey, but very different in effect on account of the different ways the two fabrics reflect the light. There are evening ensembles with satin dress and rayon-pile velvet wraps. There are sports costumes with a skirt of jersey, and a sweater that is hand-knitted, ribby, or, anyhow, different from the jersey cloth, and a coat of roughish. plain colour woollen, while just as likely as not the coat lining is of still another fabric—a thin kasha weave or a shantung, or something not at all like coat, sweater, or skirt. _ Of course, the point in these combinations is to bring together sur r faces' that 190k perfectly luscious and that, incidentally, look perfectly luscious with the texture of modern skin in the light modern make-up. I DON'T MEAN TO IMPLY. . . • While I don't mean to imply that smart costumes this year will be done in one colour, the latest models do seem to indicate that the newest costumes will be monotone, but not monotonous, thanks to the texture contracts that vary them. Actually, this brings something new into the modes. The lines of dresses and of coats have not changed very much—waistlines higher, skirts a fraction longer, some flounces, and

varied handlings of fulled panels, godets, and drips and dips, and all that sort of thing. All of that would have described the dresses of a year ago too, so colour and texture become important factors in the problem of making something new. STOCKINGS—A NEW POINT. When. I get on-the subject of stockings I strike myself as'being a nagging female. I keep on dinning in the same thing, so often—but readers, it's my duty, and it hurts me more than it does you. • To-day I am going to call your attention to a new point. Have you ever thought of the irreular hemlines and their relation to legs? If your understandings are more, conspicuous . for sturdiness than beauty you've probably been vaguely grateful for the growing skirt. But take care! The skirt drooping ' towards the floor in the back is a snare for a pair of calves. The long back forms a frame against which\your legs stand silhouetted, and that side curve of the skirt calls for an accompanying curve. Even more trying is the hem. that drops towards the front. ■ It has a' tendency to throw the backs of your calves into a relief that is more Falstaffian than attractive. The best solution for the Louis XV. or Empire style in piano legs is to wear a skirt that has long draperies all round, or, at least, at both sides, and not in the back.

In any ease, you must perceive, reader,, that stockings are more important than ever. They come in reduced dovelike colours, they must echo, but softly, your costume units. For your casterbrown, or leaf-green, you have the greenish beiges, for your warm! browns you have the warm tones of beige and bois de rose. For the yellow-greys you have the yellow, beiges. For your tearose pinks, and amarinthe you have mauvy and pinky beige, and for greys, blues, and blacks you have an infinite variety of greys, from the palest watergrey to the stormy sea.