For some days past all the fashion experts have been in Paris learning what is to be worn this year, 'The Dlgwest attraction has been a show bya young Spanish designer, Crise total Balenciaga. Men and women are said to have fought for an entrance ike a football crowd. 'Balendago, an exile from Spain owing to the' war, has been making history Paris' with the originality of his designs and he certainly gave the crowd something to stare at. 'There Were evening dresses. with' bustles of enormous satin bows into which the skirts behind were gathered up stand out. roveral inches, wasp waist dresses with the hips widened out by wire frames—but are we to tight Ince again?—and striped silk stockings with pink and black zebra stripes going round the legs.
Even without going such lengths as this, some of the designs are daring enough. In spite of Royal regulations for Courts, backless, strapless, "self-supporting evening frocks are still to be worn elsewhere. Some are described as having little more for the body than a front, heart-shaped at the top. If you shy fat these, you may go to the other extreme' with dresses which reach right to the neck both front and back, but have no sleeves. Trains are de-nitoly discarded for ground-length skirts perhaps an inch or two longer at the back than at the front, But herself under the horses running In' the Derby, for the eause—think they might have done much more. For example, out of G15 members of Parliament there are only 13. women members, which since women are the majority of the population does not Suggest' that thay care much about polities.
One of the foremost of the old-time suffragettes, Mrs. Mansoll-Moullin, complains that her hopes for the appearance of all ill-treatment of women and children have never been realized," Mrs. Billington-Grieg—a name one remembers well, she was tone of the first to 0 to prison thinks that she sewed mailbags in Holloway in vain: girls still have to. retire from the Civil Service on mar-loge, she says; men are still me variably chosen' as headmasters of ce-educational schools. Miss Sylvia Pankhurst longs for domestic hostels which would relieve working mothers of the burden of bringing up their families, and wonders why they do not combine to insist on having them, Probably because they don't want then Even as it is, many work class families much prefer the old slum houses to the new model flats.
It is an open question how many! women really care twopence about, having the vote. From Eve downwards they are individualists and have little sense of community action one of the reasons why women's clubs are so badly run? although most men's employ a woman housekeeper, who, probably regarding the members as a lot of helpless children, Keeps their house. spotless. But it would be absurd to suggest that women's position in the world has not improved out of all_ knowledge since before the War. The Church, the King's Bench and the diplomatic service are still shut to them. But there are women mayors, aldermen and magistrates. And perhaps. the suffragettes' argument is wrong after li; perhaps most_women prefer make' their mark, not in doing the some as men do, but in something quite different, in' which respect Nature has certainly opened to them one exclusive line.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.