The Well Dressed Woman on the Sea

A Smart Sailor Wears Red, White, and Blue Aboard Every Kind o-f Ship

WHEN the woman of the world goes down to the sea, no matter in what sort of ship she sails, she is as suitably and nautically attired as any sailor. Her clothes, in fact, reflect the marine influence in every smart detail. There is no donning of a casual sweater and knock-about hat—her costume is, as always, the perfect, specialized complement to her surroundings. Thus, if she sails her own boat or tears through the water at thirty miles an hour in a speed boat, her costume has been designed to suit the occasion; if she is a guest on a yacht, her outfit will be a shade more formal, but it still retains its thoroughly nautical character.

This year, the marine influence has made a distinct impression on feminine fashions in general. This is a trend that has an authentic beginning, since almost all of the Paris designers of the haute couture include some version of a yachting costume in their collections. Boivin, the French shirt maker, designed the model in dull white crêfe de Chine with a shirt-front outlined in navy-blue that is illustrated on the seated figure shown on this page; this is the type of costume in which a woman who is only an occasional guest aboard a yacht may feel entirely correct, although she is not so strictly nautical as more energetic sailors who spend half of the season aboard ship. O'Rossen sponsored the sailor suit in his most recent showing, a regulation sailor suit with a middy collar. The navy-blue pea-jacket with gold bands and brass buttons that was a Lanvin innovation proved one of the most successful of sports costumes at Deauville, and still other couturiers stressed this marine feeling in sports costumes that were meant to sec the sea at a respectful distance.

Another definite mark of sea-faring fashions is the use of red, white, and blue. For this patriotic combination is one of the smartest of new colour schemes, in daytime and afternoon costumes as well as in the realm of sports. Three colours arc better than two this season, and this triad of crisp shades brings the fresh, clean-cut feeling that is typical of the new colour range and the antithesis of the soft, blended impression created by the pastels of last year. Thus, when a boating costume is blue and white in its colour scheme, a vivid touch of red is almost inevitable, in the hat-band, the beret, or a line of piping, while the costume that has red for its background colour takes white and navy-blue for its supplementary shades. Every costume illustrated in the smart assemblage of sea-going fashions on these two pages is available in the rcd-whitc-and-bluc combination—one hundred per cent chic, so to speak.

One result of the rise of marine fashions in the general esteem is that most of the costumes that have been especially designed for life on the ocean wave are equally crisp and smart when they go ashore. The white woollen coat that is illustrated in the centre of this page is primarily intended for shipboard, as it is waterproof, but it is equally well adapted for general country wear. The shirt-front frock at the left and the navy-blue sailor's coat at the right on the opposite page are as chic and appropriate at any other sports gathering as they arc putting out to sea; while the double sweater combination, the Cardigan sweater over a soft supple pull-on model, which is one of the smartest of all sports developments, assumes a thoroughly nautical air when it is worn with a close-fitting beret, as in the outfit illustrated at the right on this page.

When the smart sailor sails her own boat, she can have nothing more practical than a red oil cambric slicker and an adaptation of a sou'wester hat in the same red, the outfit that is illustrated in the centre at the top of this page. With this, a durable navy-blue skirt and white pull-on sweater carries the rcd-white-and-blue scheme into the most practical version of the sea-going mode. The bathing suit that is sketched at the left, above, shows a clever combination of plaid shorts in red, black, and white, with a whitebelted red shirt, and its wearer varies the usual manner of tucking the shirt inside the trousers by wearing it outside, merely to show, no doubt, that smart femininity can first usurp a masculine mode, then change it to suit her very fickle fancy.