The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-06-25 00:00:00

GOSSIP ON DRESS.

A WELL-INFORMED and entertaining writer ghes the
following notes on dress and fashion in Paris in the
current number of ltlyra's Journal: The chapeau, to
be fashionable, must be either in perfect harmony
with the costume, that is in the same colour or in a
similar shade, or it must be a complete and striking
contrast to it. Naturally this last style is more diffi-
cult to keep within the bounds of good taste, and
sometimes the results of endeavouring to follow the
mode end in deplorable failures. Red, for instance,
the brilliant red of wild poppies, is extremely fashion-
able, but is only really well worn filth ecru and silver-
grey toilettes, especially if the costume be finiahed
off with red waistcoat, or a hooded pelerine with a
red lining.

GOLD embroidered capotes are worn with toilettes
of all colours, and are trimmed with old pink, pale
blue, or mauve ornaments that harmonise or contrast
with the toilette. These bonnets are very becoming
to blondes, particularly when worn with mastic cos-
tumes embroidered with ecru and gold. Charming
little capotes are also made of gold spangled gauze,
of openwork straw, SO fine that they seem to be hand
embroidered, and of fine moss-green and old-pink
embroidered fabrics. The trimming consists of ribbon
and flowers in contrasting colours, such as straw-
coloured ribbon with mauve or blue flowers, or else of
a number of ends of ribbon in different colours, all
cut in swallow-tail fashion, and mixed together in a
well-blended mass. This kind of trimming is chiefly
adopted with dresses embroidered in various colours,
the ribbons being in the same colours as the em
broidery.

OLD pink is the most fashionable colour for bonnets,
and is used in ribbons, gauze, flowers, feather', and
crêpe, either as the foundation or for the trimming.
A good model is a small flat-crowned capote covered
with gold-emDroidered lace, a pleating of the lace
forming a crest up the centre of the back, and a fan
pleating in front falling over the centre part of a
folded brim of dark old-pink velvet, which retts on
the hair. The ornaments consist of a small but rather
tall bouquet of delicate wild flowers and grasses, and
a bow and strings of light old-pink moire ribbon.

VERY ladylike hats are made of Leghorn stiaw with
tall crowns, and brims bent in various directions, and
covered and lined with drawn black lace. The trim-
mings are a plume of small feather tips in straw or
any other light colour, falling in front from the top
of the crown, and two or three detached butterfly
bows of narrow ribbon velvet. Brown straw hats,
lined and trimmed with draperies of speckled brown
velvet and bows of brown ribbon in two shades, are
also pretty, especially when a graceful spray of
laburnum is arranged to fall over the drapery. The
trimming of hats is still generally placed at the side,
but turning either a little to the front or to the back,
according to the slaape of the brim and the style that
is most becoming.
• ' •

ETAIIINE, and other openwork and transparent
fabrics, are worn in all shades, but beige is by far the
most fashionable colour: silk etamines, with raised
spots in the same shade as the beige ground, form
very elegant toilettes, but as the taste for brighter
colours is rapidly growing, the same material is also
made with spots and stripes in various shades. A
new fancy material, which combines well with plain
voile and other fine woollen fabrics, has a ground of
voile in any light colour, with regular stripes of
broche in bright shades, in charming little Pompadour
or arabesque designs. This is employed for the skirt,
or else in smaller quantities for the panels, revers.
waistcoate, collars and parements, a style which is
adopted for nlore economical toilettes, as the broche
is rather a costly material.

STRIPED &amine and voile, with the open lace.like
stripes alternating with those of the plain voile, is also
made up with plain faille or sicilienne. A good model
in this style is a costume intended to be worn at a
fashionable racecourse, in which the skirt is of
verdigris faille mounted in fiat pleats, except at the
sides, where it is arranged in wide box pleats to form
panels. Over this is a long tunic of the striped voile
in the same shade, but with copper-coloured threads
running through the openwork stripes; the tunic is
gathered at the waist, draped high on the left, but
falls straight on the right; at the back is a puffed
drapery of the same material. The corsage is a short,
tight-fitting jacket of the ztriped voile with sleeves of
the same, the whole lined with silk and open over a
pointed faille waistcoat, which in its turn is open at
the neck over a white chemisette. The corsage is
finished off with revers and parements of copper-
coloured velvet.