The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-08-21 00:00:00

OSSIP ON DRESS.

A CONTRIBUTION to the Queen has the following: A
few hints on the styles English and French manufac-
turers have prepared for the autumn and winter
season will be useful at this time of year, when ward-
robes are about to be renovated. There are always
many 1-alt-worn costumes left over after a gay season,
in the test regulatea wardrobes, and what to retain
and what to discald is a mat-tee of perplexity. We
cannot aid their owners better than by revealing what
the new fabrics for autumn wear are like, and how it
is probable they will be adopted.

For. tailor costumes English cloths will be wed in
checks, stripes, bar:, plaids, and the large blocks that
are now considered more suitable for tasters and
jackets. Inch squares of tan brown, red, olive, and
'blue are variously arranged hi these fabrics, which are
rough on the surface yet soft to the touch. Very
yellow browns prevail in all these blocked fabrics the
combination of red with blue is seen n.ore often ir
stripes than in blocks or bars. The genuine Scotch
cheviots are prepared in half-inch stripes alternately
red and blue, tan with blue, grey with black, and
green with brown. There are also shaded cheviots, a
mixture of several colours in irregular dashes. Two
shades of a single colour, such as porcelain-blue with
navy-blue, or tan brown with seal, are prepared in very
narrow striped cloths. The present fancy for black
and white mixtures is continued in heavy woollens,
showing bars, checks, st4pes, and double bars of white
on black. For more elaborate tailor dresses cloths of
plain shades are woven in larga diagonals or in basket
squares, and are in old-fashioned puce-colour, snuff
brown, old red, and in most varied blue shades, from
that tinged with grey to the deepest violet hues.
Ecru and tan shades are shown in basket-woven
cloths, also Chartreuse green and pigeon's- blood ruby.

giusn woollen are in new designs with squares of
silk plush woven in them, and the new mossy fabrics
introduced in the spring in shaded stripes are made
heavier, affording warmth for winter. Black diagonal
woollens are illuminated by bourette stripes and
lozenge shapes in Oriental colours of soft rich tones.
Mossy blocks of white are on blue grounds, green on
red, and 6cru on bronze. Fine camel's-hair fabrics
of a dark ground have their loose hairs or down in
colours massed in almond-shaped figures, in bars, and
in stripes, giving a quaint effect.

BORDERS of wool such as fine diagonal cloths are in
plaids, stripes, and rows of beads with braid between.
For instance, there will b:3 sixteen rows of black braid
separated by jet beads, or brown braid with iridescent
beads down half the width of a 'eluo or brown cloth.
Sometimes narrower borders are along one selvedge
in blocks of braid with beaded blocks, and this serves
for the toot of a pleated skirt, or as a border for the
upper draperies. Collars, waistcoats, and cuffs are
made to correspond in shapes similar to those now
worn.

PLusu is to be used for trimmings, as panels,
borders, &c., in wool or silk dresses, and is oddly
woven in with velvet of close pile in blocks at wide
intervals in plaids of velvet, and in alternating stripes
with velvet. Beaded plush is in novel designs for
pentes, or panels, or borders, made in crosswise stripes
with treble rows of iridescent beads, with the tone of
the plush for their prevailing colour. There are also
bayadere stripes of plush and gros grain in contrast-
ing dull and artistic colours, soft red with olive, rose
pink with chocolate brown, or dull blue with red.
These fabrics are to combine with gros grain for
visiting toilettes. Barred velvets promise to be a
stylish fabric for rext season in precisely the colour-
ing in Surahs used by the fashionable dressmakers
for parts of summer dresses. Thus dark blue velvet
has indented gros grain bars of red an inch apart, or
ecru is on green velvet, or white on black.

REPPED and watered silks promise to be much used
next season. Stripes prevail in all new silken fabrics,
and in many of them tinsel threads are interwoven,
especially for light silks for evening wear. There
are brocaded stripes on satin or on gros grain, some-
times a single stripe sufficing for a breadth to be used
as a train or as panels, but otherwise there are not
many brocades. Gray, lavender, red, or white gros
grains, with a wide brocaded stripe of the same
colouring in each breadth, are to be used in combina-
tion with plain grog grain. Black satin with a wide
gilt stripe is handsome; also pale blue with a single
silver stripe. In some of the pale satins the silvered
stripe is almost white, and the effect is beautiful. In
the watered silks the stripes are two inches wide, and
are separated by tinsel embroidered stripes of the
same width, blue, shrimp pink, or lavender, having
either silver or gold in the embroidered stripes.
Many white gros grains have black watered stripes, or
else there are white figures brocaded on a black
ground, alternating with ploain white stripes,

Fort evening dresses striped gauzes and veilings are
prepared in heliotrope, lavender, pink, scarlet, and
Nile green. These have satin stripes two inches wide
of self-colour; in other gauzes the ground is cream
white, faded rose, or blue, and the stripes are Algerian
or Roman of several colours. Canvas stripes are also
made in the favourite open designs like drawn work
on these diaphanous gauzes, and a feather-like edge
is added to each stripe.

WOOLLEN dresses will remain popular for glneral
wear, and velvet will be the favourite for full dress
toilettes. The preference for gros grain for combina-
tions is so evident that economists should preserve
carefully any dresses of this material that were laid
away when satin came in vogue, as they will be excel-
lent for next season when brightened up by the plaid,
plain, or striped velvets now being marufactured.
Striped and watered fabrics, either of wool or silk, can
also be used again.

NEW ribbons in preparation for autumn are woven
in canvas-like meshes, striped or brocaded with gilt,
and finished with feathered edges. Plush ribbons of
a solid colour on one side have the other side in gay
Roman stripes. Velvet ribbons have scalloped edges,
or tiny tassels on their selvedges, and are satin on the
reverse side. Ribbed velvet ribbons appear in two
shades exquisitely blended. The watered ribbons are
in every tint of every colour, and in all widths from
half an inch to 7-inch widths for sashes.

A CORRESPONDENT, writing on "Travelling Dress,"
says :—" Off and away is the motto of the month.
London in August is a place to be avoided
.by those
who can get away to sea breezes, mountain air, or
any inland ncok where rural pleasures may be er-
joyed. The greater half of the fashionable world is
at Cowes, assembled professedly for the re,gatta. But
bow many of the people ever look at the boat? Like
the regatta at Henley, the one at Cowes is but a pre-
text. It affords an opportunity for enjoying a de-
lightful week at the sea without wholly parting from
the society enjoyed in town. After Cowes this
goodly company will be scattered to the four winds.
The trousseau de voyage is prepared, and the flight
heavily weighted with dress trunks and bonnet-!)oxes,
will soon be made. Travelling costumes, yaflting
dresses, and the numberless et ceteras that accompany
each, have occupied many thoughts of -tare. The
lightest of woollen fabrics have been manufactured
with a view to these toilets, and fashionable milliners
have devised new and more graceful modes of draping
the folds of tunic or polonaise; and fresh arts for
making the bodice becoming to all sorts of figures.
No easy task this latter; but it has to be accom-
plished, and it adds a further heavy item to the bill
which art could furnish to nature for improving and
embellishing, &c."

Tins has been a season of white gowns, and the
autumn is to see many of them too. At the seaside
white serge, white flannel, and white veiling are to be
in a majority over the popular blue. Redfern is
making yachting dresses with the bodice and drapery
blue, opening over a white serge skirt. Many are
wholly white, with the addition of a little biaiding. A
good example of the mixture of blue and while has
the skirt made of navy blue serge with broad panels
of white trimmed at one side with three rows of narrow
blue braid. The bodice turns back in reverse from a
white vest, while a tab in the two collars holds the
fronts together at the waist. The pretty little coats
devised for wearing on cool days over summer gowns
have a peculiar style this season. No one could for a
moment mistake them for those of last year. One is
of grey diagonal cloth, braided in the patrol style and
made double-breasted. The collar, lapel, and cuffs
are of black astrakhan. Others are of plain grey,
drab, or brown cloth, quite untrimmed, and with the
seams done as they are in men's coats.