The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-09-24 00:00:00

GOSSIP ON DRESS.

FRENCH critics have had much (remarks a Daily
News correspondent) to say this year about the in-
creasing tendency of painters towards the nee of
neutral tints. One writer attributes this tendency to
the influence of English fashions in dress, and depre-
cates the prevalence of such colours, if colours they
can be called, as mud-grey, wall-brown, elephant,
mouse, and other kindred hues. The argument is that
men, constantly seeing these negations of grey beige,
beaver, and blue so dark that it is almost black,
become habituated to such sombre tones as, of late
years, with the emception of the last brilliant summer,
they have become accustomed to the neutral tints of
a sunless atmosphere. What they do not see, they
do not paint. They are losing the artistic sentiment
of colour, it is feared. English materials are made to
bear the brunt of the blame of this loss, and French
wpmen are counselled to be led no longer by the
faintasies of the women who dwell in the zle bruzneuse,
and who are apparently guided In their choice of
dresses by the dull tones of their foggy climate. It
is scarcely just, however, to accuse English fashions
in this way, for though dull tones of colour are much
In vogue, br ght ones are equally popular, and will
always find quite as many votaries as the others. Red,
for instance, has had an amazing run during the last
few years; and yellow, which cannot be called a
dull colour, has been seen much among us of late.

PINK has rapidly come in again this season as a
summer colour, and white and cream tints may be
said to have carried all before them during the very
hot weather. What artist could find fault with
these, relieved as they generally are with knots and
touches of brighter colours, such as seagreen, cardinal,
shrimp pink, or turquoise blue? And though the
cold days of autumn will send the white gowns into
the seclusion of the wardrobe, there will be no lack
of bright tints wherewith to enliven the watercress
and moss green, the navy blue, the stone-colour, and
the almond tints of orthodox English morning dress
in dull weather. Touches of vivid scarlet or prawn
pink are promised for the new felt or velvet bonnets,
and the silk kerchief that is knotted ronnd the neck
will match the aigrette or the handkerchief that aids
to trim the headgear.

THE French sportswoman is permitted to wear the
most sombre colours without complaint from the
critics. The first idea of a really serime " chasse-
rem," in selecting a costume is to avoid any touch of
brightness which might serve to alarm the game of
which she is in pursuit. The orthodox costume is
composed of cloth, velveteen, or tweed, in such tints
as dead-leaf green, bark grey or brown, or that very
wall colour which matches the leaves that lie sere and
yellow on the ground. The form of the dress shows
nothing novel. It consists, as it always has done
since sport became a fashionable pastime with French
ladies, of a pair of trousers tucked into leather
gaiters ; a skirt reaching the knees, either plain or
mounted in flat pleats into the waist-band, but wholly
guiltless of drapery; and a blouse bodice held in
about the waist with a leather belt. The only differ-
ence, this year, is in the head-gear, the soft felt hat
being now replaced by a beretta cap made of the same
material as the dress.

FOR evening wear, all the warm and smiling tints
that suit artificial light so well are adopted in the vie
de chateau. Some curious contrasts have been seen of
late in dinner gowns. One of these was in tan-
coloured velvet with trimmings of heliotrope. It had
a success of style, apart from the question of beauty.
Heliotrope goes well with cream colour and gold; but
any deeper tint becomes harsh in immediate proximity
with the soft, greyish mauve of the deliciously per-
fumed flower. Another rather staitling conjunction
was that of scarlet and lilac. This is not exactly
novel, the Princess of Wales having worn it ins bonnet
a few months ago, but not even years of use could
make it pleasing to the eye. For the rest, dinner
dresses are, as a rule, as harmonious as they 'aro be-
coming. A very lovely one is made of white velvet,
cut like a redingote, and opening in front over a skirt
of exquisitely fine Eastern embroidery in most brilliant
tints, softened and refined by the skill with which
they are blended. The design is rich and heavy at
the edge of the skirt, but grows lighter and more dif-
fused as it rises. This sort of pattern is, perhaps, the
best adapted to a skirt, the weigh! of the lower part
causing the material to hang in peculiarly graceful

BEADING and embroidery mingled are much wed
for ornamentation of dinner dresses, and the mistake
is frequently made of having too large a design on
the bodiee. When a lady wears on the back of her
shoulders the dark impress of a huge pine-pattern,
Lranching right and left, she completely destroys the
symmetry of her figure, so far as appearance goes.
A favourite design of this description has a straight
thick line up the middle of the back, with a sort of
cross-trees branching out from it en either side. This
is a hideous sort of so-called decoration. The design
ought, indeed, to become narrow and fine as it
descends, but it can do so without being exactly
monstrous at the top. Beadwork is more used for
tabliers again than for panels, a reversion to a pre-
vious style, and a better one than that of the last few
seasons. The panel, be it said, is quite artistic and
good in style when well arranged, but the manner in
which third-rate dressmakers embody it with the
drapery that ought to flow over it in freest folds has
brought it into disrepute. To see a panel rise and
fall with the surrounding drapery gives one much the
same sensation of unfitness as when the castle walls
on the dramatic stage quiver and tremble when the
villain of the piece bangs the door. A panel is sup-
pooed to be a portion of an otherwise unseen skirt,
and to join it on to the upper drapery is to reveal the
fact that it is but a dissimulation at best.

EAU-DE-NIL is to be much worn in evening dress
this season. It is a lovely shade, especially by arti-
acial light.. A dinner dress in surah of this tint is
made with a lining of prawn pink, and here and there
a touch of vivid scarlet is permitted to appear, as
though unintentionally, from beneath. The whole
effect is perfect, and suggest a mermaid's cave, only
for the trifling exception that in that case the prawns
would not be cooked, and would therefore be of an
ineffective greyish brown colour, instead of their soft,
bright, supper-table pink. Gold colour promises,
too, to be a great favourite this winter. Brunettes
particularly ought largely to adopt it, since it brings
out all the pink in the complexion and nullifies all
the yellow.

UNrORTUNATELY it often happens that the greatest
care in the dinner toilet is rendered null and void by
the proximity of a near neighbour whose gown is of
the most vivid aid uncompromising tint. For instance,
the lovely ran-de-nil dress described above would lose
much of its loveliness were it placed near a gown of
the new brick-red, or one of electric blue. It would
be well if ladies would consult a little beforehand, 'so
that their dresses might not jar and quarrel with
each other. The wardrobe always contains gowns of
those valuable semi tones of colour as cream, silver.
grey, or white itself, which can safely be donned if the
neighbourhood be feared of some killing green or blue.
This kind of general harmony is not sufficiently appre-
ciated; for, though sisters or bosom friends frequently
compose themselves, by means of their draperies, into
very pleasant colour-duets, it seldom happens that four
women, or even three, care to arrange a harmony for
the delectation of themselves and the other diners.
Their chief idea is, too often, to 'startle; and compe-
tition, rather than combination, is the first thought of
the fair guest as she prepares for the principal meal
of the day. Notwithstanding this, however, the result
is frequently a very charming group, with no jarring
colour among them; and if the host or hostess have
taken care to place the table decorations under the
care of an artist in such matters, and not to have any
one note dominant, there is little to fear.

IR the new silks (says a Paris oorrespondeut of the
Daily Telegraph) the colours are often miegled, by
one being shot or glace with the other, and we are
told by the dressmakers le changeant is all the fashion
—not changeableness, but tones melting from one
colour into another. Brown with a glow of pink,
willow-green shot with grey, or one or other of the
crttnsons in vogue, old
.Sevres blue glace with otter,
clmet with old gold, moss green with strawberry pink,
grey also with"pink, and deep blue with orange. This
system of colour blending is not only applied to the
taf;!stas and the surabs, the failles and the satins, but
to the long piled plush, the velvets, the moire
antiques, the watered silks, the fancy silks, the
brocades, striped silks and velvets used by dress-
mokers for gowns and for mantles, capes, and hand-
some cloaks, but also to the plush, velvet, and gros-
grains with which milliners are composing the deli-
cate capotes and bonnets of the future. Nor does it
stop here. The ribbons that trim these gowns and
bonnets, whether in satin or sarsenet, faille, or
wAtered silk, are likewise composed of two colours
irterwoven, one dominating over the other, the
second being a mere blush visible in the curve of a
loop in the fold or tarn, or a streamer. Plumage is
chosen to match, and where nature has not seen fit
to provide the desired combination of tints, art steps
in and produces it to order, with the addition of a
metallic lustre that is only to be found on the fetthers
of a few very fine birds indeed.

TILE new passementerie—and a great deal of a
certain sort is required by the couturiers this year—is
often woven of two colours, while tho beaded trim-
mings are rich in mixtures of divers tints. They,
too, are in special demand, particularly for the
ornamentation of bodices and of the llchtt mantle—
that most natty and becoming of outer garments,
with its double plastron fastened round the waist by
an elastic band beneath the pagoda sleeves. On them,
as on the bodices, the beaded decoration takes the
form of a necklet, epaulettes, and fringe-like orna-
mentation for the plastron. But in the case of the
mantle it is heavier, richcr, and altogether more pro-
minent, swamping the actual material of which it is
made almost entirely in a sheen of glittering steel,
gold, silver, or cut glass, now borrowing the rich hue
of the ruby or garnet, now of the sapphire or
amethyst, now of the topaz or emerald. Fashion is
likely to keep these mantles in favour for some time
time longer, it being quite possible to vary them
sufficiently to please those who, being well able to
afford change, are bent on having it, though, of
course, they must make way for something warmer as
soon as the temperature becomes really chilly.