The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-09-08 00:00:00

GOSSIP ON DRESS.

WRITING on the subject of "Dressing in Country
HM-let s,"a Correspondent of a weekly journal devoted
to fashionable copies, says :—lf you are stopping in a
smart. hoose you will find people dress for breakfast,
dress for walking, and drew, for five-o'clock tea. Two
tea gowns at lea-t you ought to have, and the more
piquant and becoming the better; dainty slippers to
match, and often cape make them more per'ect. Black
Surat trimmed with a colour, and a profusion of lace
down the front, cut en Watteau at the back, is a
fashionable style ; so are light blue plushes, white
stamped velvit, and other charming combinations of
cream brocade and primrose or peach. I notice that
the best-dressed women in country houses are careful
that the coloured embroidered handkerchiefs, tucked
into the front of the bodices of their close-fitting
cloth dresses, give just a necessary dash of colour,
which is accentuated by a bouquet of natural flowers,
probably fastened above the handkerchief with a
Jewelled pin.

A VARIETY in plain self•coloured dresses may be
made by having changeable waistcoats, one like the
dress, one red, and one white pique. They are made
with a row of buttons on either side on which they are
buttoned. The plain cloth jAcket bodices and others
of elastic cl-th make a good change, and these have
revers at the throat, which open to show a tie like a
man's, fastened with a scarf pin. We will suppose that
you then have two good dresses far daily wear, with
the variations suggested. Still more will be required.
Many ladies who go out with the shooters have
regular shooting sui,s, with gaiters, knickerbockers,
and short skirts. At all events, a thoroughly strong
serviceable suit will be needed, and from experience I
find there is nothing like a leather petticoat., which
can be worn with jacket and tunic.

LINEN collars and cuffs are best suited to tailor.
made clothes, and these do not encourage the wearing
of much jewellery, Single.stone diamond earrings are
not considered too much for morning wear; and any
paucity of ether jewellery which Dame Fashion may
deem necessary is made up in costly rings—diamonds,
emeralds, ruble., and sapphires—which cover the third
finger of each hand., In country houses there would
seem to be a certain rivalry among the ladies with re-
gard to jewels, and the very same who in London are
content to wear one parure everywhere, vary their
jewels as often as they do their dresses. The gloves
universally worn would seem to be the Swedish kid,
with enormously long gauntlets, narrow and almost
fitting the arm closely; or long buttonless washleather
gloves, which wash easily.

IN many houses high bodices and tea gowns are
worn at dinner; at others only very full dress, and it
is troublesome to find you are not provided with the
kind required (says the same writer). Black and
white dresses with a change of bodices are a great help,
and distinct coloured bodices are very much worn at
the present time. Anyway, be careful of the minor
knicknacks of dress; have a variety of fans, shoes,
dress handkerchiefs, and coloured ribbons. Very
large trunks are a mistake. A dress basket, in which
nothing but dresses are packed; a leather trunk for
linen, boots and shoes, &c.; and a bonnet box of
leather, which will go under a railway carriage, and
hold hats, bonnets, handkerchiefs, gloves, ribbons,
and laces, with a roll of wraps, ought to suffice for
any vik•it If you are going to one or more balls,
either a nuiliner's box or a small dress be.sket, specially
for the ball dresses, is far better .oan an enormous
trunk.

FRESH cottons and flannel dresses are best for lawn
tennis; and for boating nothing is so nice as white
flannel, made with a change of loose skirt bodices,
white, striped, and plain coloured flannel. When the
weather is hat cottons are the prevailing material. A
dark coloured one, well trimmed with lace, is a great
comfort and stand-by ; and I am not at all sure that
light wire.grounded bareges and printed woollen cos•
tumes—indeed, any light silk or woollen substitutes
for cotton—are not the best in the long run. At all
events, you want a plentiful change of washing dresses.
A fresh print or a simple foulard, or a white, thick
muslin, looks far better than a rich silk, and a pretty
hat better than a bonnet, unless it be a close, plainly.
trimmed straw. At all such parties, a dust cloak for
the drive thither will be wanted, and lawn-tennis
shoes should be taken by the players. For daily wear,
adopt high low shoes, with thick soles. If you substi-
tute elastic for shoe strings, you will get over the
difficulty of their coming untied, and you will not run
the risk of thin soles when you run in and out of the
groucds ; nor are they unsightly indoors.

Than article on" Paris Fashions," the Queen says :
The new materials and the new millinery for the
forthcoming season are well nigh ready, and a glance
behind the scenes reveals some few novelties in both.
Let us first take a peep at the autumn bonnets and
hate—felt and velvet are to the fore, plush is nowhere,
not even among the trimmings. D -rk heavy straws
will be worn as long as September lasts, when they
will resign in favour of fine for felts, velvets,
and a tufted silk material resembling Astrakhan
for. As for the shapes, the subject is bewilder-
ing ; some of the bonnets are small, others are
pokes. The salient feature about them all is
the crown, which is ample, and often square, provision
being made for the new style of arranging the hair.
In hats the Henri Troia is the leading shape, with its
high stiff crown and straight brim. The crowns here
are also important, being large enough to take in the
coil of hair which the Parisians now set on the top of
their heads, having repudiated the classic Greek knot
in the nape of the neck. Felt hats are trimmed with
loctreless cloth of light quality, with velvet of short
pile, and with terry velvet. The ribbons used are
mostly reversible—plain velvet on one side and repped
velvet on the other ; then there is the new astrakhan
ribbon, woven in looi.s or tufts.
k

GREY is likely to be the leading colour in millinery,
and the newest bonnet trimmings are steel net and
steel lace, woven of metallic threads, but very fine and
filmy looking. Escurial lace and heavy ficelle lace are
much used, so are large beads (principally jet or tor-
toiseshel), in eccentric shapes—pear shaped, spiked,
and oblong. Feathers and plumage of all sorts
supersede flowers in the new millinery, and a long
chapter would not suffice to record the devices
resorted to for producing entire bonnets, or
bands, crowns, brims, &c., wholly of feathers.
There are ornaments made up with feathers,
as, for example, a miniature Gallic cock two
inches long, a cockatoo three inches in length, but
both exact copies of the real birds. And a great
"feeling" for the natural bird is predicted, swallows
taking the lead, followed by grouse, pheasants
partridges, and pigeons, as these have the grey and
brown shading that fashion is to affect. Clusters of
wings, each of a different colour, are bunched
together, and in the centre is a long aigrette of heron's
feathers ; ornaments of fine cut steel, long bronze and
gilt pins, with an animal's head—a fox, a ram's head,
&c., are also trimmings on the new millinery.

WITH reference to dress materials for autumn wear,
the Queen says there are decided novelties in weaving,
aa, for example, a rough surfaced Cheviot of fine wool
woven to look as coarse as a horse cover. Other lightly
woven but smoother woollens show almost invisible
checks of two colours, producing what is called the
"Venetian effect,' different fro,ri the shot effect seen
in silks. Woollens generally follow the lead of silks,
and there are plenty of corded cloths and ottoman
cloths in a grey shade called " pschutt," the new wor,l
for "chic." There is a new twilled woollen called
"velours serge," which is studded with velvet leaves
or checks ; and there is also " paillasson," that has
long loops like Astrakhan cloth. As for the chenille
velvet and embroidery to be seen in large detached
figures on ,:amels' hair, fine cashmere a and cloths, they
will banish extraneous trimmings, for they are orna•
mental and rich enough in themselves when made up
with the plain material.

A NEW fashion in fans comes from Vienna. They
are called emblem fans, and are made of the wood of
the cork tree, which is extremely light. On the leaves
of the fans a proverb or a signature is written. Some
of them are qnite albums, as, for example, one pos-
sessed by an elegante, bears the autographs of Mackart
the painter, Wagner, the Archduke Louis, and two
grand ducbeFses. Others not decorated with auto-
graphs are illuminated with mottoes or proverbs.
The Archduchess Marie Th&ese carries a Minerva
lan ; the leaf is made of owls' feathers, and on the first
stick is a small owl's head, with ruby eyes.

THE Daily Telegraph gives an article on "Paris
Fashions," from which we quote the following :
History provides a sufficient list of names that may
be well applied to hats and capotes, and the milliners
help themselves with no sparing hand. The broad-
brimmed Manilla or Leghorn hat, with its load
of autumnal flowers and fruit, now in vogue out
of town, is called a "Lee diguieres ;" one of
the toques made to supersede the
," Girondin "
and "Conventional," after a medkeval model—a
"Jean sans peur." "Anne Boleyn "is chosen as the
name for the dose fitting bonnet, whether composed of
a mixture of velvet and gold braid or of tulle spotted
with chenille blown together in puffs, much in favour
just now, and simply ornamented with a stiff feather
plucked from the wing of an ibis or a goose, and a bit
of aigrette or osprey. In geranium pink or terra.
cotta they are frequently the complement of the
fashionable black lace gown, either made up on a black
foundation or with glimpses of a coloured slip and
bodice through the delicate meshes of the Chantilly or
silky arabesques of the Spanish blonde.