Fashion Brief
Arty-craftiness is back in fashion. The little old post office lady in her round, steel-rimmed glasses and her lacy pond-coloured jersey is now the smartest girl in town. There’s a special cachet again to the hand-knitted garment, particularly if you made it yourself. And if you can bake your own bread and grow your vegetables as well, you’ll come top in any Society Index Quiz.
Grandmothers, besieged by grand-daughters wanting to learn the knack of making those crochet caps and holey cardigans, are having to remember stitches and patterns they probably haven’t used for years. The Women’s Home Industries, in West Halkin Street, London, S.W.1, a well-established firm which has been selling its hand-knitted garments for 10 years, has suddenly, in the last few months, started selling to the young as well.
The knitting and crochet craze isn’t, however, a boutique fad for the young alone. Balenciaga used knitted stockings throughout his last collection and St. Laurent showed hand-knitted smocks and bonnets, winding up the show with a crocheted wedding dress. A lot of the knitted clothes in the shops are, in any event, too expensive for the young at whom they’re aimed, or simply too sophisticated – for instance, the coral jacket below (5), which would suit an older woman much better than a girl.
Remember that the more crafty the clothes, the less homespun the woman must look: wind-blown hair, plaited chignons and hand-hewn combs ruin the effect of the hand-made clothes that should go with them.
If you’ve forgotten how to crochet or knit a lacy design, you can teach yourself again from a knitting pattern. Vogue Knitting Book (price 2s. 6d.) is a fund of ideas for crafty as well as plain knitting. Book No. 66, for instance, has a pattern for a thick nubbly Aran coat that looks as though it came straight from an Irish fishing village with a good wish in every knot. In No. 67 there is a pattern for a crochet dress with an eyelet skirt and cuffs.
Remember the days when you made long useless strings of knitting with a cotton reel with pins stuck in it? – the same principle applies to a more practical knitting machine (details below). With it you can run up a pair of stockings in a lunch hour.
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