Fashions in Paris

It appears that the masters of fashion in Paris have decided to abandon once and for all the austere line they followed in designing women's fashions before the war, and to adopt a new line that aims at luxury and elegance. The fabrics in use are beautiful to look at, bright in color, and luxurious to the touch, silks and woolens alike. You will find many different kinds of them, and yet they are almost one in point of perfection and elegance of color and workmanship. The number of colors has become exceedingly great, almost past counting: red in wonderful shades and arrangements, and likewise blue and brown and others, so that every one of them captivates the heart. Among them are many colors that were unknown in elegant women's fashions before the war.

Added to all this is the ingenuity of the fashion masters in inventing charming novelties of the utmost elegance and beauty which are at the same time practical. In this respect fashions fall into two main groups. In the first you will find the jacket loose and ample over an elegant dress that is almost tight, to show off the beautiful points of the figure, made of a woolen fabric of splendid beauty in color and cut. In the same group there is another sort of jacket, narrow at the waist and drawn in at the belt, much shorter than the jackets in the other collections; and in this group are the various dresses — some for evening and for dancing parties, some for ordinary wear or for paying visits and the like. The sleeves hang loose and wide from the shoulders but narrow at the elbow or at the wrist. It should be pointed out that the dresses in this group are tight at the waist so as to show the lovely lines of the figure — the hips, the waist, the bosom, and so on. The modern coats are distinguished by their hoods, which are most like the hoods of monks.

As for the second group, its salient and striking feature is the narrow waist and the neckline shaped like the figure 7, running some distance down from the neck, with the shoulders of its sleeves — whether of dresses or of coats — free of padding; padding is used, however, below the waist to show off beautiful hips. In this type of fashion you will find variety in colors, but of a kind that sound taste does not reject. The elegant woman wears a blue dress, for example, under a black or a splendid olive-green overcoat, and the colors appear harmonized in a wonderful harmony that draws the eye and charms it.