The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-04-24 00:00:00

GOSSIP ON DRESS.

Black is in high favour just now. Black brightened
up with a superabundance of jet beads, small and
round bugles with their facets glittering in the sun,
large cut-glass beads and tassels, pendant aiguillettes,
polidaed discs reflecting light like so many mirrors,
mixed with deaa-black shell-forms, opaque black
pearls, imitation fruits and berries, and gimp arabes-
ques, which give novelty to it, and break the metallic
uniformity of the cut glass. That portion of the
female attire most profusely decorated with this is
the miintle, though the bonnet or hat gets its share
too, laid along the edge or brim in a glistening border,
and composing the actual foundation of the crown on
a substratum of buckram or strung on wires. True,
the millinery is of6en ornamented with gay-tinted
flowers and the mantles lined with colour. The jet
bugles and the rest, when sewn on semi-transparent
tissues of different kinds, or merely woven together
in a sort of netting, require lining, for it is seldom
that good effects are obtainable where the material
of the bodice underneath shows through. With the
hat or bonnet it is different. We are accus-
tomed to see the light glinting through these
steeple-crowns. This semi-transparency is one of the
newest and most remarkable features of millinery
and mantles this year. We shall have thin black
tissues, richly worked with jet, standing out in bold
relief on crimson, in pleasant harmony, against back-
grounds of lilac, mauve, and steel-grey, or simply
lined with thin black silk. There are coloured trans-
parencies also. Tan-coloured guipure, lined with red
or moss green, "old gold" lined with a brighter
shade of yellow, green with crimson. They will,
however, be the exception for reasons readily
explained, the choice of a gown, to harmonise with
any two colours, being difficult, and that of a bonnet
more difficult still. When one mantle alone must be
purchased let it be black by all means—at least so
far as the upper strata is concerned; linings are of
lesser impoitance. Many of the new mantles are
comparatively long, long for mantelets that is to say,
but the cape with half-formed sleeves reaching only
to the waist is still worn, and deserves to be so; it is
extremely natty and becoming. In many cases the
sleeve is cut off short to the elbow, while the front
of the mantle is prolonged. Much lace is used to
gather round the edge beneath the tasseled fringe;
but round the throat there is generally a band of
beaded galloon, and the mantle is closed in front,
where, it may assume the shape of a bodice. No rule
is absolute in any of these matters; there are almost
as many forms of mantles as there are people to
make them; while, so far as decoration is concerned,
no two specimens exactly resemble each other.

MANTLBS always come in in Paris with the early
spring toilettes, and are almost as systematically set
aside later on by the younger and more fashionable
of Parisians. There is little doubt but what it will be
the same this year, in spite of the novelty and general
prettiness of the mantles, for the costumes are made
in a way that will allow of their being worn alone, as
soon as the temperature shall permit. If the choice
of a mantle out of so many is bewildering, the same
may be said of the materials for costumes. Trimmings
become of lesser importance here; so many dress-
lengths include the decoration. Great prominence is
given this season to the materials which have woven,
printed, or embroidered upon them a pattern that
shall take the place of trimming. Women who are
of necessity economical and blessed with a small
amount of imagination can hardly do better than pur-
chase costumes with the decorative portion finished
to their hands. They will of course run the risk of
being attired like many hundreds of others, but
individuality is not to be got without expense of
money or brains. Bodice lining is to be had
with 'patterns of different sizes drawn upon them.
This is certainly a help towards a good fit for atna-
tear needlewornen worth a trial. There are a certain
number of yards of tissue figured on one side only, or
with broad Lands of pattern, which will serve for the
skirt. Over this a plain tunic may be draped, gene-
rally high up on one side, while some narrower
bands are provided for the trimming of the bodice.
Or else the ornament is circumscribed to the panels
for the skirt, and to the vest for the bodice; plain
material being used for the rest, mounted in pleats
for the skirt beneath the necessary addition of a
tunic. Two yards of embroidered woollen will make
a tablier with some supplementary frilling below, and
straight pleats of plain tissue at the back; the bodice
being plain also, with plastron to match the tablier.
Ready "disposed" dresses of zephyr or any other
cotton cloth are to be had with the requisite amount of
embroidery—in bands, festooned or plain—for the trim-
ming thereof. A single, decorated side breadth or panel
is more fashionable than two, and box-pleats are
preferred to kiltings for thin materials. Silk dress-
pieces are to be had with one narrow breadth of
another colour prettily brocaded the pattern
arranged so as to frame in the panel. Considerable
help is afforded to the fair purchaser in the choice of
combinations. Such a figured tissue will have its
plain complement purposely manufactured for it, and
there is no need to hunt for something to match, or
to fear having to put up with one a pcu prt%s. This
refers equally to combinations of one texture, and
where silk, for instance, is required to harmonise with
I woollen. The tradesman who sells the one under-
takes to provide the other also ; the self-coloured ma-
terials with unobtrusive pattern in the grain, the
open-worked striped tissues, and the semi-transparent
canvases have their match ready to hand in faille or
taffetas--taffetas is sassenet sufficiently good for a
foundation—besides velvet for trimming of the same
tint, and, if desired, ribbon also.

FOR costumes, colour contrasts are less favoured
than formerly, except when the second colour is intro-
duced in the form of stripes, checks, or plaid. Striped
skirts need no further ornament than that provided
by the pattern itself, and are mounted to the waist in
pleats single cr double; but variety is obtained by the
introduction of plain breadths among the figured and
vice versa. The tunic is generally of plain material,
to match the ground of the other. In the bodice the
two are combined just as fancy dictates. Now the
facings are plain and the bodice itself is striped; now
the bodice is plain with decorated plastron or vest.
Some of the new loosely woven woollens, composed cf
threads of different colours, which look as if they were
knitted or crotchetted together, are made up with
similar tissues traversed by stripes of one of the many
colours of which they ate woven. When draped with
silk cords or gimp appliques made to correspond they
look very handsome. Of course there is a silk founda-
tion, but It does not show.

SIIOT SILKS are among some of the brightest of the
silken tissues to be had this season. For combination
with them stripes of velvet or brocade are laid upon
shot grounds to match. Many of the batistes and
zephyr cloths are shot also, the former having tiny
patterns embroidered upon them in one of the two
colours. Soft twilled silks and foulards, mousselines
de laines and satins, figured with pompadour bouquets
and with single flowers copied from Dresden china or
the old, quaint Strasburg- ware, are included in the
fashionable programme of the season. So are Indian
silks and Indian batistes, and the cotton cloth called
indienne, printed with all sorts of curious designs,
besides checked and striped cambrics. For the trim-
ming of these ribbons will be used, sewn singly on the
hemmed edges or multiplied in horizontal bows;
sassenet ribbons with a picot border for the most part.
Black canvas, 6tamine, and lace-woven grenadine is
co take the place of the bluk lace skirt so much worn
out of doors last year, and the use of which this
season is confined to home.