Foreign News: Spring Styles

The grass poked up green in the Bois, and the Paris air began to shed winter's tired grey. But spring's true heralds on the boulevards were new bonnets—a straw cartwheel blooming with daisies, a rowboat with roses, a green-&-pink aviary and other elegances of haute couture.

At Maggy Rouff's, Legroux's, Suzanne Talbot's and Vera Borea's, vendeuses said they had deferred this season to American taste. Hats were smaller. None of those towering creations of Occupation—nothing over 14 inches high. Hats were also less elaborate—a choice of flowers, birds or fruit but not three courses on one hat.

Oui, materials were hard to get. But one managed. There were ribbons, lace, paper, straw, net-over-wire, pastel felt, cloth, solid feathers. And shapes showed gay imagination. There were tricorns, buckets, bowls, halos and even one with an alcove for Madame to fill as she fancied.

On Unter den Linden, too, the new season brought its collections. Reported Berlin Fashion Writer Gabriele Müller:

"Our Berlin women are still smartly dressed and have a certain elegance. ... Tying their handkerchiefs around their necks they give fancy free play. . . . One sees more women and girls with rouged lips than before the war. . . . This is a little something which our women flaunt in the face of difficult conditions. ..."