Ladies First Class Fashions for Days at Sea - 1922

By Ethel Fleming

(Above Left) A Luxurious Fur Wrap

The broad-sleeved, silken-gleaming wrap of broadtail, with its high sable collar, shows the wide mandarin sleeve and straight back, so much favored this season. Russek.

For the days when the winds race along the water and sky and sea make a lovely symphony of grays and stern blues, the designers have planned wraps that have not only charm but a cozy and delicious amount of warmth and protection.

So that one may feel as comfortable as Baby Bunting in his rabbit-skin, and yet look as delightful as if it were summer when crisp organdies and frilly furbelows make nearly every woman as good to look at as a magazine-cover maiden!

Furs, most naturally, play an essential role in the late autumn wardrobe. Also, this year pelts have taken a turn for the more diverse, so that if milady is petite she need not swathe herself in a wrap that makes her look like some over draped and stuffy Buddha.

There is the youthful and becoming Jacquette, and one may choose a garment of this alluring type for an evening, utility, or sportswear.

For evening wear Russian ermine, white caracul, chinchilla, and black Persian broadtail are the luxurious furs from which one may choose. Black fox or sable upon the collar and sleeve bandings makes a striking contrast.

As to style, straight line silhouettes or slightly flaring curves are frequently encountered, though the lapped front, with a metal clasp, is another pretty and popular mode.

The linings show extraordinary gaiety and brilliance—crepes, broches, silver pipings and tinsel trimmings make them quite as pretty as an evening wrap should be—which is saying a great deal! There are other modes, too—long, slightly draped coats, and wraps with a cape effect.

(Above Right) A Furred Wrap of Tarquina
Irene Castle, with her usual verve, wears this kit-fox-colored wrap, with its collar and cuffs of kit fox. Tarquina is a velvet-textured fabric, much worn. Franklin-Simon.

One, illustrated, from Russek's, shows the unusually wide Mandarin sleeves, and the upstanding sable collar, which, in contrast to the silken-gleaming broadtail, makes the coat a thing of such joyful luxury.

Ermine capes, in platinum and beige, drape naturally about the wearer, and are incredibly long, suiting the stately type of woman most admirably.

For street and utility wear, caracul, especially in brown tones, nutria, beaver, mole, and red fox are first in favor. Straight silhouettes are preferred, and the mousquetaire cuff, very flared, bell sleeves, and kimono sleeves are in evidence.

Wraps, other than fur wraps, in many varied styles, make the outerwear this season extremely interesting. Materials include plain and novelty velvets and velveteens.

Many varieties of wood and silk-napped materials are used to fashion the medium and dark-toned straight-line coats which, with luxurious fur collars, are seen so much for travel wear.

One such wrap, of very dark brown duvetyne, and a stand-up collar of soft beaver, was seen recently on the incoming Aquitania.

Another, illustrated, and worn by Miss Irene Castle, is made of Tarquina, a velvet-textured fabric in the new kit fox color, and luxuriously collared and cuffed in kit fox.

Other cloth wraps show the godet insert, straight fronts and bloused backs, draped fronts with straight backs, and low-belted blouses and coats, with a tendency now and then to that ever-becoming and favored style, the cape back.

In fabric furs, matelassé materials, broadcloths, and basket weave, many of these wraps are as charming as any fur wrap can be.

As to frocks, they vary as the variable mind of a woman. The evening gowns are, of course, the loveliest.

The beautiful ballrooms and the occasional formal dinners on hoard make the evening gown a lovely necessity, and abroad the opera season is just about commencing, and the theatres and fashionable restaurants in London and Paris are thronged even now.

The spangled robe or tunic, in all its glittering, scintillating beauty, iridescent or in one bright color or, still better, all black, with shoulder straps of gleaming brilliants, is the favored mode.

Gaufré and processed velvets are also in demand, and novelty duvetynes in the softest and most glorious of shades are employed with infinite grace and verve.

Egyptian designs are good, especially in the beaded all-over effects. Draped modes in plain and broché velvets, metallic splendors, ombre chiffon gowns and circular lines with pointed sides displaying a high color facing, are among the chief things of interest to milady in quest of an evening gown that shall be "different."

The colors most in favor are, of course, black, and brown, from the faintest cream to the mellowest, deepest golden brown, many variations of blue, with canna reds, paprika, yellow, white, purple, orchid, and mahogany. Cloqy and matelassé, as well as velvets and taffetas, and satin gaufré fashion most of the finer gowns.

Fleming, Ethel, "Fashions for the Crisp Brisk Days at Sea," in The Cunarder: Special Mediterranean Cruise Number, Liverpool: Cunard Steam Ship Company, Ltd., Vol. 3, No. 5, November 1922, p. 27-28.