Empress Eugenie Again

Empress Eugenie Again

Paris last week talked of Empress Eugenie and of ostriches in the same breath. Historians and ornithologists had nothing to do with the case. Couturiers and stylists were pronouncing la mode for autumn and early winter. It was the official Fall Opening.

When the Empress Eugenie hat reappeared cautiously last spring the style world took a guess. It was a saucy fillip to be followed by surprises. U. S. department store buyers, fashion reporters, newsgatherers, sweltering in a Paris hot spell, dodged traffic last week from the Place Vendome to Etoile where the fashion houses are finding out the surprises. The Empress Eugenie hat was still there, low-crowned, point-brimmed, fitting the head like a piece of orange peel with curled edges. It flourished a provocative ostrich feather. Ostrich farmers on the French Riviera, in California, Egypt and Algeria, bemoaning the seven lean years since hats were last plumed, hoped the feathers in Paris would prove more than a whim.

But it was not the hat itself that was so important in the Salons last week. Extreme, its popularity may soon become a waning fad. More important was what the couturiers had pulled out of the hat to go with it. Wrote one exuberant correspondent: "This diminutive object of fashion has exerted sufficient influence within less than a month to change the entire trend of styles for the last 100 years." Some of the trends:

P: Waistlines even higher and smaller, causing corsetmen to take heart along with ostrich farmers.

P: Necklines higher and shoulders veering from square and narrow to wide and sloping.

P: Bodices no longer bloused but fitted; hips slim and rounded.

P: Skirts straight and occasionally flared low; many evening frocks with Empire ruffles and flounces, some with short trains hung from bustle bows at the waistline.

P: Skirtlengths for daytime to the lower midcalf, for evening to the instep, or the floor.

P: Jackets all lengths with some flaunting Victorian ruffled peplums and leg-of-mutton sleeves.

P: Colors: black, white, wine, green, brown, red.

P: Materials: wool, tweed, much velvet, taffeta, lace, crepe. Novelties: diarachnak, a new double rough tweed, and dogaliah, a rough wool filled with long white dog hair.

Couturiers noted more American buyers in Paris than last year, also noted fewer Germans, who admitted they find it harder this year to arrange credits and payments.

Also announcing style trends last week was Amos Parrish, unique style forecaster for U. S. and Canadian retail buyers and merchandisers. To his seventh Fashion Merchandising Clinic in Manhattan's Hotel Pierre went 100 store buyers, advertising and sales managers. "More lady-like than ever--and certainly gay," said Amos Parrish last week. "Women will look taller this fall. . . . And of course they will not be wearing their hats on the backs of their heads. Fashion is now tilting her hat forward over the right eye." Alert, keen, Forecaster Parrish senses style trends like a hound after a badger. From chart records of styles for the last ten years, from reports of scouts stationed on street corners in 50 big U. S. cities he analyzes what most women will wear. He reports his findings to merchants, saves many from heading wrong. Last spring after his scouts reported on over one million women. Amos Parrish foretold the Empire trend.

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