THE CONQUEST OF THE PEASANT DRESS.

Gisborne Times, 16 December 1911, Page 10

THE CONQUEST OF THE PEASANT DRESS.

Architecture of honored ages is preserved with the utmost careq pictures painted by hands long since dead are harboured with scrupulous consideration ; sculpture is treasured; music is played again and again so that it be not forgotten. But tJie characteristic clothes of tho peasantry, which tell so much concerning their thouligts and ways, would be allowed to drop into disuse, in a great number of cases, if a cult were not made of it by women interested in the subject of national costume. Just at this moment Roumanian embroidery is a conquest. It is very gay and holidaylike, and is used upon limp cotton blouses of cheerful ochre and pale pink shades, and upon aprons and frocks. The Crown Princess of Roumania is very fond of the national costume of her husband’s land and herself wears it, as do her children also. WORN BY QUEENS.

Other Queens and great ladies there are who uphold tho excellent plan of maintaining the national costumes—tho Czarina, for example, the Queen of Holland, and the Duchess of SaxeCoburg and Gotha, who with her husband, both in the old dress of the land, joins sometimes a pageant at which also are performed the national dances of the duchy. One of the prettiest peasant fashions is the wearing of the cap, made of embroidered lawn. In France such caps have been from generation to generation different in different districts, and when the farmers’ wives in certain parts of the country go to market in them all alike, and for the rest of tlieir attire dressed in neat black frocks, the effect is very charming. Originals of the modest head coverings are being bought now, and women are wearing them with their rest-gowns. They are being copied, too, for brides. The peasant cap is, indeed, one of the most fashionable ways of the moment for arranging the veil of priceless lace worn by the bride, and her bridesmaids in their cambric replicas look very winsome and countrified. INSPIRATION FROM APRONS.

Old-fashioned aprons have _ been recognised as a source of inspiration in dress adjuncts this summer, and many of the collars and cuffs that girls wear are copies of those worn by servants in olden days.

A scheme of decoration may _be applied to a linen dress by copying the national embroideries of Norway, Spain, Hungary and Greece, among other countries. The embroideries are wrought by means of threads and worsteds in a mixture of colours, including as a rule antique blue, a crude red and orange. Instead of massing colored embroidery in the form of plaques upon tho corsage it is more fashionable to display the pattern upon the skirt high upon the hips and in tho centre of tho tunic. A repetition of the design edges the corsage where it is hollowed out beneath the throat, and the crown of the shoulders and sleeves are treated similarly.