The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-08-15 00:00:00

GOSSIP ON DRESS.

A. PARISILN fashion writer Jays:. Is it with a view
to making up for the absence of so large a proportion
of the beau sexe that the male goes about just now in
such very light and gay plumage? I asked myself
the question on the Boulevards the other day. It
forced itself upon me. The fashionables who
strolled, cigarette in hand, between the Jockey and
Tortoni's, or who sat at the café tables in that sweet
far miente peculiar to the Continent, were for the
most part clad in delicate dove-lili.e grey. Some had
white waistcoats figured with tiny patterns; others
had adopted the waistcoat of flax-blue—cool-look-
ing and effective in combination with grey. They
all wore light cravats without exception, and all
had forsworn the ungainly black top-hat, and
substituted for it a much more elegant head.
gear—for the most part grey hats and grey melons
toned down by a black ribbon for the conventional
minded, and all grey of the lightest shades for those
of less severe proclivities. Whereas others again
further defied Mrs. Grundy, and frankly assumed the
coarse straw sailor hat bound with a wide handsome
gros-grain or watered ribbon. Such head coverings
as the last are suitable enough to the smooth oval of
eighteen or the blond moustache of twenty; but there
is something almost ridiculous in the portly man of
more sober years wearing white straw, and moreover,
wreathing it with white, pale blue, or primrose
ribbon—plain, or interwoven with narrow strips of
crimson, gold colour, bright blue, or orange.

ON the "planks" at Trouville one naturally looks
for eccentricities of this kind; on the Parisian
asphalte they appear very effeminate—all the more
so perhaps that girls of masculine tendencies in dress
have taken to wear them also. And the similarity
between the sister in her tailor-made suit, and the
brother clad in grey and with bright-hued ribbons on
his hat, ought to be galling to the latter; and that it
is not shows, it must be admitted, a want of manliness
in our golden youth.

IN his light-coloured or white cravat, the dandy
places a gold pin enamelled with white, on which are .
strewn tiny patterns—a hand of cards, single clubs or
hearts, tlorseshoes, anchors, or what not—even to the
ant which has suddenly become a fashionable insect
(wherefore I am at a loss to imagine), and likenesses
of which are not only printed upon stuffs and drawn
on the smooth disc of these pins, but are reproduced
with curious exactitude in black enamel for brooches.
Never, perhaps, were brooches made so small (they
do not exceed the length of an ordinary ant)
saving its eggs from the intruder the egg
being of course a pearl, which each one
carries in its mouth. These niiscroscopic insects,
set among the folds of a lace fichu, might well be
mistaken for real. As cleverly made are the grass-
hoppers in greenish gold—about half an inch long.
Sometimes the two are combined in a brooch or a
bracelet set on a simple gold safety pin or zone. At
the same time the taste for horseshoes of every de-
scription increases rather than diminishes. There is
something almost absurd in the incessant reproduc-
tion of a design of this kind, that has nothing artistic
to recommend it, unless Its efficacy with regard to the
keeping away of witches be taken into consideration.
A short time ago a lady had the crown of her bonnet
made in the shape of a horseshoe, but fortunately this
was only a personal idiosyncrasy, and in a usual way
women are content to secure their officer collars,
fasten their belts, suspend their watches, and catch up
their draperies with them without introducing them
into millinery. This may come, however, and what
was only an eccentricity deitgenerate int:: a habit.

It is safer not to be too positive about anything
connected with fashion nowadays. Boundary lines
count for little—a step over them is so easily taken.
Thus, in my last letter, I somewhat rashly made a
reservation with regard to polonaises— limiting them
to opaque materials—and a few days after the lie was
given to me by the apparition of several of these
Princesse over-dresses composed of one or other of
the fashionable, semi-transparent materials, either
lined throughout with colour, or made 'up over silk.
One instance will suffice : The foundation is bright
moss-green taffetas; plain bodice, and sliirt plain also
—save on the right• side, where it is arranged in
kiltings. The polonaise of
.ficcUP coloured lace-woven
woollen falls in straight, deep flutes behind, the extra
fulness being folded underneath at each seam, while
the front of the skirt i. 3 draped across from right to
left, and secured by means of loops of Algerian
ribbon, and the bodice, slightly full, has its fullness
gathered up a little below the waist by a handsome
clasp.

ALGERIAN ribbon is woven of a light sort of wool,
with coloured stripes. One or two of the first-class
milliners are using it a great deal for trimming hats.
For country hats it is applicable enough. To these,
however, its usefulness ought to be restricted, not
only on account of its texture, but also because it does
not admit of much variety in the arrangement. It
is impossible to give the boos a pretty appearance—
they must weep, unless fixea in an upright position by
pins against the crown, and for this reason it suits the
gipsy form of shelving brim better than the upturned,
more masculine hat. A Gainsborough in coarse straw
is also a suitable subject for these ribbons, the brim
being lined with pleated crape, or, more simple,
gathered muslin. They are likewise used sometimes
to sew on skirts in horizontal bands. Surah may be so
trimmed, the upper portion of the gown being chosen
in a material to suit as nearly as possible the colour
and texture of the woollen stripes.

RIBBON velvet is more serviceable, and on the whole
looks better, while no amount of repetition renders it
less acceptable as a trimming. Nothing can be better
for late summer than a gown of Orleans plum-colourea
natte, decorated with zones of velvet of the same
tint. For this purpose forty-two yards of velvet are
necessary, divided into ten rows. The skirt is wide,
the extra width being pleated up at the back, and the
velvet is sewn on at equal distances to the waist. A
half breadth of the natte is draped across like a very
short apron, and behind another whole breadth, a
square is pleated by two of its sides to the waist,
beneath a mass of velvet loops. The velvet is also
carried round the waist, in a deep point in front, and
round the throat and wrists.

BESIDES the Algerian ribbon and band of velvet
there are various kinds of silk braid and Persian em-
broidery on canvas, which serve to make up zebra
skirts, striped material of course taking first rank. In
the case of the latter dressmakers are not content
with placing the stripes in vertical lines and zones,
but they use them diagonally by way of variety. Here
is a gown composed of deep blue cashmere, plain and
striped with lines of beige and brown velvet. The
narrow plain skirt is made up with the selvedge (and
necessarily the stripes also) running horizontally;
over this is arranged a second skirt composed of three
plain breadths, most of which are pleated at the back,
and the remainder on the right side, the front edge
being also pleated to the waist, so as to form a
diagonal apron, falling over a second apron, draped
up to the right, which is made of the striped material
cut on the cross. The gown is completed by an open
cut-away jacket of plain cashmere, and a vest of the
striped material confined at the waist by a folded belt
of blue urah.

ANOTHER somewhat similar costume in brick-dust
red woollen, striped, with a line of a deeper red, has
a silk under-skirt hemmed up with a very deep band
of the material, cut on the cross. Behind are water-
fall pleats (the straight way of the stuff), and across
the front is draped a scarf of the same, with the lines
running horizontally. The same composite arrange-
ment is persevered in for the bodice, made with
points, and draped across the bosom, with cross-cut
pieces from the shoulders; while the tight-fitting
sleeves are finished off with bouillonnes round the
armholes, kept in their places by little tongue-shaped
pieces 0f cashmere.

INSTEAD of draping upper skirts they are some-
times cut irregularly at the lower edge, which gives
them the appearance of being caught up. To be suc-
cessful in the arrangement of such skirts they ought
to be cut in the first place the same length all the
way and mounted. When this is done, and the skirts
are put on the stand, or on the person for whom they
are intended, the scissors are put into requisition, and
the edge is pared to the desired shape. Suppose this
skirt to be mounted in flat pleats all the way round,
with one box pleat on the .left: side, the edge may be
rounded up from the front and back and continued up
until the box pleat is only half of its entire length.
A small portion of the underskirt is thus left visible.
Such a gown may be composed of a full underskirt
of rosewood-coloured cashmere, embroidered with
li2,ht Havannali brown, and an upper one of tho 1 tter
tint, cut in the manner indicated, and hemi,,(i up
with a cross-cut band of the same on the wron side.
The jacket, tight-fitting, but cut sharply alv from
the front, matches the lower skirt, and is embr, idered
all round the edge and on the cuffs. Beneath this is
a light-brown waistcoat, with wide embroidered lappels,
open so as to show a chemisette of pleated white cam-
bric, completed by a band of embroidery around the
throat and a "masher stock."

Tins stock is another male addition which Parisian
ladies are making to their toilettes, and the cambric)
chemisette is a feeble imitation of the shirt front, by

no means displeasing to modern tastes.