Woman Is Never Taken by Surprise

The woman among us is never taken by surprise. She reckons on the coming of summer before it spreads its warm wings over the twilight, and so she spends the last days of spring preparing her summer clothes. And when the October wind storms through the autumn leaves, the woman has already gathered into her wardrobe whatever winter clothes she could manage... And I do not think the woman among us appreciates this blessing she enjoys, compared with the other women of the earth.

For today she can estimate what the weather will be at the coming UNESCO in November, and prepare herself for the occasion, confident that her weather calculations will not deceive her. And that is no simple matter, because some of our ladies are preparing for the UNESCO season national costumes made of national fabrics, to show the world the personality of the woman among us and her national color. So this assistance on the part of the weather will have an effect reaching further than warmth and cold. How awkward would be the position of these ladies had they prepared winter clothes and the UNESCO month turned out hot! Should they appear in it in winter gowns despite the heat? Should they change their costumes between night and morning? Should they give up the idea of showing the national costumes they had prepared?

Nor is this problem a fanciful one, for it confronted the ladies during the Olympic Games, when they made ready with summer dresses on the reckoning that the Games would take place in the summer season — and the month of the Games turned out to be a cold, wintry month. For that reason the fashion houses were obliged to run ahead of the winter season and make the coming winter's fashions in summer, in order to display the stamp of the Englishwoman at that world festival.

These two pictures show some of the winter fashions created for that occasion, which appeared at the boat-race gathering.