The flower inspired in him shapes of dresses it would take long to describe — the most splendid of them made of folded white tulle, with a full black skirt from between whose velvety leaves the bodice springs as the flower springs from its sheath.

Nor can I, while I am on the subject of summer fashions, refrain from pausing a little over the maillot and the variety that has come over it. Perhaps the most famous maillot today is the one known as the Ball, suggested to the couturiers by the ball played with in the water; they made it in its shape, of two pieces colored in violent tones: black and yellow, or red and blue. Nor did they stop there — they puffed out its sides and completed it with a bodice, a cap, and a bag all of the same color.

And speaking of hats, bags, and colors, I will say that these too have been shaped as summer and its coquetry willed: of the sea hat they have made two fluttering wings of straw, or a fisherman's net hanging down to the shoulders, or a small colored cap. Of the bags they have made round, ball-shaped pouches in color, or black cotton ones covered with netting, or dainty little baskets which they have called "the hunger-stayers." And the colors most in vogue in all that I have described: red, black, white, blue-dotted, gray, and green.

JACQUES HEIM — Paris