FASHIONS: Bewitching?

In a New York Times ad last week, Manhattan’s Saks Fifth Avenue ecstatically hailed one of its new styles: “How bewitching to the eye, how becoming to the figure, these lovely elongated lines . . . from a prophetic group of fall silhouettes.” Those who glanced at the side view illustration of the new fall silhouette were startled to behold a long-skirted, skinny female with obtruded stomach, her profile resembling a collage of boomerangs and an aged orange or two (see cut).

Though the U.S. has yet to feel the full impact of the new silhouette, it was already provoking some violent opinions. The New York Daily News’s inquiring reporter served up some samples. Herbert Bayard Swope thought the longer dresses neither revealing nor concealing—just dull. Onetime Cinemactress and Clothes Horse Gloria Swanson said: “They flatter those whose knees do not stand leg-revealing clothes.” Look’s Mrs. Gardner Cowles: “They make women look long, lean and restricted.”