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Image provided by: Suffolk Cooperative Library System
• ^ ' \ \ Fashions Go Western By Sara Day D HOLLYWOOD. lESIGNERS are turning m o i e and more to the great Southwest for inspiration, particularly to California and Mexico. This i| especially true of sports clothes, both active and spectator, as well as accessories. The resort lines (forerunners of spring and summer clothes) designed by Los Angeles and Hollywood designers have emphasized Western motifs. One fabric house, which looms noth- ing but hand-blocked prints, has made up a number of California designs. There is a pottery print done on Celbrook faille, the new Celanese version of shark- skin which is made up into play clothes. One dress house is using a Hollywood print featuring cameras, megaphones and what not. The new San Francisco bridge is another print used in a play suit. A palm tree print made into a Lastex bathing suit proved very popular and this same house Is now putting out a cactus flower printed satin suit. Hand- painted gourds tied with raffia decorate ^ sports cocktail dress made by another defligner. Some of the most interesting acces- sories, typical of the West, are those being done in leather by Alma Norton Putlill. Her bags and belts have struck daughter and an expert equestrienne who grew up on a Southern California ranch, so she is familiar with every-, thing pertaining to cowhands and horses. Always interested in clothes and design- ing, she told me, she became interested in designing accessories because she could never find the kind she liked to wear. She has introduced the word \accessorize believing that the smart way to dress is to choose a simple basic costume and then dress it up with smart and unusual accessories. So she began \accessorizing\ her own clothes. Her friends liked her bags and belts, so little by little she started turning her home into a workshop. Before she realized it she was mothering a thriving business. Last fall she made belts of heavy strap leather studded in nickel nail heads or in colored stones such as cow- boys wear. Irene Bury designed simple velvet cocktail dresses to go with them and they proved to be a sensation. That gave her the idea of using leather for other cocktail accessories. She desired a bolero copied after that of the Mexican bullfighter and studded the shoulders of it with big colored stones. Then she ^lade a matching cummerbund. This is not only style news, for there is com- fort in the additional warmth It fur- nishes when worn beneath a coat. At a recent cocktail party I saw Rose- mary l-ane, who is being featured in Wanier Bros.' \Hollywood Hotel,\ wear- ing one of Alma's Jackets and cummer- bunds in wine color over a simple green crepe dress. The combination of colors was stunning. She also made tor cocktail wear a cylindrical bag of buck in red or black with a matching belt, plain or studded in nailheads and lined in imported silks. Both belt and bag had zipper ending in leather tassels. Then one day Alma met Muriel King, the well known New York designer who makes Katharine Hepburn's personal wardrobe and who came to Hollywood to do Hepburn's clothes for \Stage Door.\ Muriel complained because she could never find a bag sufficiently large to carry all the feminine trivia, as well aa a flock of pencils for sketching. So Alma made her the first copy of the saddle bag in black suede with her ini- tials in nickel nail heads. This bag consists of two purses, back to back, with a wide strap handle which can be worn over the arm or on a belt, leaving- Ixjth hands free to work with. Muriel was elated with it, told all her friends about it and thus started the craze in Hollywood. Someone suggested to Alma that this saddle bag adaptation would be ideal for the racing season at Santa Anita. One could carry pencils, racing data, glovea and all the rest in It So it has been christened Santa Anita. One of the smartest of tliese she made In black ajid white calf for Gloria Stuart, who, like moat every one else in the motion plc- The cowgirl Icif bag with nickel sfuds. ture industry, is a racetrack fan. Gloria, whose current Twentieth Century-Fox picture is \Headline Hunters.'.' has a matching .cummerbund. She wears this set with a simple dress of blue wool. Her pigtail hat of white angora was designed for her by Ruby Ross. A NATIONALLY known hat company heard of Mrs. Duf- fill's Interesting leather accessories and suggested that she make a hatband for a typically Western sport hat. and a bag and belt to match. Thus was bom the cowgirl kit bag, which looks like a hand- kerchief with the four corners drawn up. She made this of natural colored buck and studded it, as well as the belt and hatband, in nickel studs. Cecilia Parker, M-G-M starlet, has one of these seta which she wears with yellow beige sports dress. Her hat is dark brown. Real cattle brands are hammered onto green suede to make a stunning set which Marie Wilson has. On this set of bag, hatband and belt are branded such intriguing things ats a pitchfork reminiscent of the hay harvest; a hash knife, early ranch culinary implement; two rattlesnakes glaring at each other, symbolizing danger; and a split rail, emblem of the settler's tasks
