Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), Saturday 4 May 1935, page 8


BUILD YOUR Winter Wardrobe

Round YOUR TOPCOAT

BLACK, navy-blue, or any

color—no matter what

you have planned and shopped for, your winter coat is the most important "buy" you can make.

Around it you build your winter wardrobe. It will have to be worn for three months nearly every day, so spend plenty of time and thought be-fore making a decision.

COATS at Paris showings have

not kept to one silhouette, nor to one length, nor to any other single standard.

There are straight up-and-down coats, coats fitted to the waist with a moulded wrap and slightly wide skirt, coats belted at the waist and flaring fully at the knees in a Russian manner, three-quar-ter loose coats, full-length pencil-slim coats, coats with and without fur col-lars.

The most conservative type of coat is the most practical. It fits the figure all the way down, being slightly wider at the hem. It wraps over to the side where it ties or buttons. It has a detachable fur collar.

Smart women buy black, which, how-ever, is only suitable for town wear. Navy-blue, the browns and greens and grey are running shoulder to shoulder with black for favor; they have the added attraction of being able to be worn for all occasions.

Fabrics are varied. There are smoothlooking fine woollens, ideal for town coats, but the fancy weaves, with rough surfaces, are newer. Tiny diamond pat-terns, zig-zag stripes, deep vertical ridges, puffed blister effects, and some diagonals, hairy angoras, and crinkled-looking woollens—all these in one-color effects are splendid selections.

There is nothing very spectacular about fastenings. There are buttons covered with the coat material, metal buttons, and clips in copper, gold, and silver, ties of the fabric, wide belts of leather with matching buckles.

Necklines depend upon the fur collar. When this is detachable the coat usually fastens high to one side or centre-front, so that the coat will look finished when the collar is removed.

Varied Uses of Fur

COAT sleeves are cleverly cut and the

fullness, if any, is very restrained. It is the fur trimmings that mark these 1935 models as more distinctive than be-fore.

There is a reason—and a good reasonfor the fur. No more hunks and patches on shoulders and sleeves. Simplicity is the keynote, and the fur is there to keep you warm and to be becoming.

Fur-collared coats with uncuffed sleeves are sold with a matching muff. Russian coats with belted waistlines, long, loose sleeves, and a high fur collar or astrachan lapels, have been copied from the coats of the Cossack—these coats are only for tall, slim women, and are made of smooth-surfaced lightweight woollens.

For the collars that are attached to the coats all kinds of fur and many styles are seen. Fox, moleskin, squirrel, sealskin, astrachan, leopard, coney, skunk, lynx.

Face-framing collars of fox are cer-tainly most becoming; these should stand away from the neck at the back (they are sewn on to a three or four-inch curved piece of material), be as deep as possible in back and narrow down to the waist in front. The smartest of these collars is inclined to ripple down each side—see the example sketched at the lower right corner.

Then there are fox collars that en-circle the neck and tie with a bow of the coat material beneath the chin, or just fasten there with two heads or two "legs" knotted.

Wide rippling cloth collars and lapels are faced with flat or semi-flat fur, such as dyed coney, astrachan, sealskin, squirrel, dyed moleskin. These collars stand up at the back and are flattering as well as smart. Sometimes there are fur revers and no collar.

There are Eton collars and cuffs of

[P E T R O V]

flat fur, like the green coat with the leopard skin, sketched below.

Detachable Collars

THE fur collar that is separate from

the coat is the most economical in-vention ever presented to us by the creators of fashion. These collars take various shapes. There is first of all the scarf collar which is just a straight snip of soft, pliable fur (any fur except fox or skunk), with shortish hairs, worn like a scarf. It can be looped over in front or at the side, it can be tied in a bow, if it is long enough it is worn like a stole, one end crossing the throat and hanging back over one shoulder, the other tucking through the belt.

The width of these fur scarves varies from six to ten inches.

Fox collars clip on to the necklines of coats or are sewn to shaped pieces of material, which keep them in positionthere is one illustrated on the navy-blue coat below. Whole foxes form little fur cape-collars that encircle the shoulders or the neck, and fasten centre-front.

Flat furs are made into short little capes that come high to the throat and reach just above the elbows.

There are innumerable fur jabots and bibs of flat, smooth fur that can be worn two or three different ways. There are

draped shawl collars of dyed moleskin which

cross in front and but-ton on each shoulder with fur buttons.

The following is a list of which furs to wear with different colored coats:—

With a Black Coat: Black or red or silver fox, black astrachan, lynx, beige fox, black coney, sealskin, or mole-

skin.

With a Brown Coat: Leopard, brown fox, lynx, brown moleskin, coney, skunk, broad

tail, brown squirrel.

With a Navy-blue Coat: Grey fox, navyblue fox or moleskin, red fox, squirrel, lynx, grey astrachan, mole, silver fox.

With a Green Coat: Brown fur, leopard, red fox, lynx.

With a Grey Coat: Grey astrachan, navyblue, grey fur, or brown fur.

. THIS sports coat from Lanvin is of green

rough woollen. The collar, cuffs, and belt are made of leopard skin. The coat is three-quarters worn over a matching skirt.

. BLACK smooth woollen makes this slim-fitting

topcoat with upstanding tucks on the sleeve. The separate scarf collar is of black sealskin. . A NAVY-BLUE ridged woollen coat is fastened

by two buttons on one side and a fabric bow at

the waist. A separate material scarf is bor-dered on three sides by lynx.

. BROWN woollen coat with a wrap-over skirt.

The rippling collar is of brown fox. A yellow

dress is worn beneath.

. A RUSSIAN Cossack coat of pale-grey angora

cloth flares fully at the hem. The cap, revers, cuffs, and muff are grey astrachan.