Up-to-Minute Modes
Time Costume
to the
Watch
Fashion now decrees a change of
decorative time pieces for active sports,
daytime and evening wear.
Virginia Judd attractively displays the
latest Gruen watches she wears on dif
* ferent occasions.
The sturdy Octagon-shaped wrist
watch to be worn for active .sports can
be depended upon for perfect timing, es
pecially when it is tennis and a ‘love
match’ is in the offing.
For street and general daytime wear,
• > 1
By Alice L. Tildesley
Hollywood.
“Fashions move in cycles.” We’ve heard
this statement so often that most of us
accept it and are inclined to believe that
if we keep anything long enough, it will
come back into style.
But how can we forecast what trend
styles will take next season? Will they
•be simple, rich or flamboyant? Will the
materials be plain, unadorned fabrics,
lavish velvet and fur, or cloth of gold,
brocades, beads and embroidery?
“We progress from one to the other,
over and over,” explained Herschel, young
designer for Twentieth Century-Fox
Studios, “not alone in clothes, but in
architecture and furniture, interior
decoration and coiffures.
“For years I have had the idea that
styles can be forecast by a survey of
what has been done in the recent past,
what is being done today, what was done
yesterday and what was in vogue in the
cycle previous to that. We will repeat the
cycle once removed, but not as it was in
its previous incarnation. There will be a
variation, influenced by some political
• or social event.”
The designer is young, dark and in-
Where do styles
have their begin
ning? From an
old painting,
maybe a bit of
architecture o r
the personality of
some one promi
nent in the news,
says Herschel,
famous Holly
wood designer.
r*< m m
.”•5 mt . ’ *C
■Bli
THE BIRTH OF STYLES
'v
tense. He has so much to say that it
is difficult for him to put his ideas into
words. A new thought seems to strike
across the first, and still another comes
while the second is only 7 half-explained.
“Today, as I watched Dolores del Rio
wearing the flamboyant clothes of the
World War day's, for ‘Lancer Spy,’ it oc
curred to me that that was the last rococo
period before our own, which is today.
The war and the extensive use of medals
and gold braid brought on the over
trimmed modes of those days. The cor
onation and its attendant festivities
brought on the flamboyant styles of
today.
“It is my theory that we begin with a
cycle of simple things, get tired of sim
plicity, go on into extravagance and
beauty, and then as one lovely fashion
succeeds another designers can think of
nothing new unless they begin to be
startling, flamboyant—so we have a
period of exotic, overdone fashions.
“Therefore, the next style will be of
classic simplicity. I can’t be wrong. De
signers have done everything they can
think of, so the only way out is to take
off all trimming and go in for the starkly
simple.
The coronation brought on the ornate,
overtrimmed clothes of today. Every gar
ment must be ornamented. The trousseau
of the Duchess of W'indsor couldn’t have
a simple little silk suit in it; the suit
must be trimmed with gieat staring pat
terns in braid. The simple afternoon
gown must have a giant lobster painted
on the front.
“Flowers, ribbons, jewels are put into
women’s hair, which rears up into elab
orate curls or coronets; never smooth un
less arranged in the page-boy style that
ends in the round curls and flows over
the shoulders—a fashion eminently un
suited to daytime wear.
“Remember the short bobs of short
skirt days? The more sculptured hair
fashions of the Renaissance period?
There you have it! Our next hair styles
will be extremely simple, but definitely
not like the short bob of the correspond
ing era.”
“M iss del Rio’s wardrobe for the pic
ture is only an approximation of the
wartime clothes. If we turned her out
in garments actually worn then, audi
ences would go into spasms. They had
great bags of material around their hips,
hemlines tied in, the figures looked all
out of proportion. So we put white aig
rettes in her hair, use silver metal cloth,
make a Persian paisley design in bugle
beads on w hite crepe roma for an evening
gown, and go into greater elaboration
with trims on other costumes.
“After 1918 and the close of the war,
we reverted to simplicity. This trend con
tinued for some years. We were back to
the archaic when everything was in
blocks, if possible. Short skirts, pencil
figures, no waistline, hats that obliter
ated hair, ears, brows, everything done
in stiff, straight lines wtih no suggestion
of curve.
At length we tired of simplicity. We
began to go into the Renaissance period,
when lines began to flow, materials grew
more elaborate. We had feathers again.
Going off the gold standard suddenly
made gold seem more desirable, so we had
metal cloth, furs, jewels, trailing skirts
for evening.
“The trouble with this period is that
it soon runs into the rococo. Designers
don’t keep to beautiful, naturally lovely
things; they go into the exotic.
there is the Curvex. Called the “tirst real
wrist watch”, it curves to the wrist
shape while its curved movement is
rugged and precise as a pocket watch.
Miss Judd is shown on Park Avenue,
New York, wearing her Curvex.
Stylists say the elaborate diamond
watch is a definite fashion requirement
for evening wear, worn either with the
diamond bracelet or with the silk cord.
All the photo insets show the wrist of
Jessie Simpson, beautiful New Jersey girl
who recently lost her pretty ankies in a
railroad accident. She is now earning her
living using her pretty w’rists modeling
Gruen watches.
HerschePs views on “The Birth of
Styles” will be continued in later is
sues of Feature Magazine.
The "rococo”
era is here
presented by
Dolores del
Rio. The
paisley de -
sign is done
by means of
silver beads
on w h i 1: e
crepe for the
body of the
dreSs, which
i s in turn
draped over
one shoulder
and about
the hips unth
silver metal
cloth.
V £ |
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