1935-08-24 — Page 7

No. 24

China Mail

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Introducing...

The Luck-Frock

A

Nastonishingly, frank young

worian ence told the en- the history of how she-who' (though warm-hearted and charming was not particularly pretty-acquired her attradive and devoted husband. There is not space, to tell of the many and subtly graduated stages by which this determined young lady brought him to think that he would be lucky if he could induce her to look at him. But. taking up the romance at the crisis, we find he has asked her to the theatre with him and ac- cepted a cup of coffee after- wards at her rooms. She knew that it was touch and go wheth- er he proposed to her that same night. She dressed with the in- tention that the end of a per- fest day should find her an en- gaged girl.

"I suppose," suggested a friend, that you put on your beautiful new Molyneux gown."...

She smiled. The brand-new pink he'd never seen and in which I wasn't sure of myself? Not 1 wore my old black chiffon-mer al- ways think a woman looks well in black-that I'd got broken 211 to harmonise with every gesture of minemy ancient black wisp that I knew suited me, and that I'd al- ways had a wizard time in. As if I'd wear a--perfectly untried frock. Naturally" for a special occasion like that I flung myself into my *fuck-frock!”

Every woman, maintained this ex- pert, has known frocks in which she is sure of specially good times, and which, though all women love. new clothes, she regrets almost to Tears when the rag is past anything but my little old clo' woman”

An interesting study, these out- standing frocks of a woman's car-

CET.

Eighty per cent, of them are evening frocks the dresses of lei- süre and appeal

A Viennese dress artist told me thar black chiffon, such +48 my young friend was wearing when she became engaged, represented "The classic, the infalible Man-trap." It was the well-balanced mixture of devilry and helplessness—but you can't lay down rules.

Men are usually rigidly conserva- tive about women's dress; going for cut before colour, and asking only that it shall look like every other woman's, but a little more chic. However, the mark of the Juck-frock is

break that it may

laid every masculine convention down for women's wear-and get away with it.

What does it go by?

Difficult to say. Very seldom "does it depend upon cost- You may spend far more than you've got on a dress and be not one compliment the better for it.

•

Sometimes. the fascination comes from association. Perhaps thé prst time you've put on that custume you obtained 1 coveted post, or somebody said something nice about your appearance That gave you confidence, and every subsequent time you've put the thing on it has been with subconscious anticipa- tion of suCCESS.

There is no copying the luck- frock You. may think you have created the absolute duplicate, only "to find that like the Queen of

Sheba, there is no more spirit· left -- in it.

HONG KONG, SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 1935.

No. 24

LONDON CLUBS ARE CHANGING

THERE

The Victorian Type Is Gone And Man's Domain Is Open Now To Women

THERE is a rumour going around that the clubs of

It is per London are dying. haps not the newest of rumours. for it was certainly going, the rounds as far back as the Boer War and it may have been far ́ from new even then. If it is a true rumour. the clubs of Len don seem to be taking a lon time in dying

But perhaps it is true only in spots. It may be that some phases of London's club life are dying. Perhaps this periodical' rumour springs from a succession of changes, some of them very deep- seated, which are coming over the clubs of London; and it may be that before these changes have run their fall course, some of London's clubs actually will die. One of them, indeed, the old Cocoa Tree Club which went back to 1746, has already passed out.

-Leisure on the Continent is tra- ditionally divided between home and the cafe, and the Continental type of club is a more or less exclusive cafe with bridge, poker and bac- cariat available as wanted.

London's distinctive type of club emerged from the cafe stage fully = century ago, and the greatest" of London's clubs, being younger than a century, have never known the cafe stage at all. The only pre- sent day clubs that bear - obvious traces of their cafe origins are the one-time proprietary clubs-Ar thur's... White's, Brooks's and Boo- dle's--which trace back to the coffee houses and chocolate bouses of the early 1700's (White's "goes back to 1698 and is probably the oldest existing club in the world). All these were great gambling clubs in the days when wild and reckless gambling was the thing.

But the great London clubs have? lost every vestige of their coffee-

(Punch)

"It Must Be Somethin' Serious, Liza. They Were Like That a

Week Ago, and They Still Aren't Speakin” to Each Other."

house ancestries. Long ago ther ceased to be places where men went to be gregarious (and became just the opposite places, where men go to be alone. Aloofness is one of the Englishman's most deeply rooted instincts. He likes to keep himself to himself. He is capable of compromise, as any man must be if he is not to live alone in the middle of the Sahara. He recor- nises two obligations which his club imposes on him-to pay his sub- scription and to conduct himself like a gentleman. In addition to these, he observes certain usages imposed by the consensus of the Jub-usages in such matters as smoking, dressing for dinner and the admission of guests (“stran- gers" is the technical term};

Within these limitations the indi- vidual member insists on his own supremacy. He insists that the sole business of the committee, and of every employee of the committee from the secretary down to waiters, is to provide for his comfort. When he wants silence he insists on hav- ing it. When he wants a nap in front of the fire he insists on hav- ing that, too; and if he snores_too outrageously for endurance the waiter can always bring him around with a tactful "Did you ring, sir 2

Thus we have the most typical interior of a London club-the morning room filled with vast lea thery armchairs, each containing the half-recumbent form of a mem- ber engaged in the exercise of his inalienable right to be alone. · 1 he wants to attend to his letters. he insists on silence and unlimited stationery. If he wants to read he insists on a library containing: everything that he wants or is rea-" sonably likely to want. Perhaps it is just at this point that the London club becomes most incom- prehensible to foreigners on the Continent. The idea of using B elab for any serious work hardly gecars to them. Yet it just this that gives the great London clubs their distinctive place in English

life.

There are supposed to be some. thing like 150 recognised clubs in London of to-day. and they represent every

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of politics, sport -and ciety and almost every taste, habit and profession. A crack club like the Marlborough still confers a tobe of its own because Edward -VII. founded it as Prince of Wales and as long as he lived election to it was impossible without his ap- proval There is even more, “crack-. ness" about the Royal Yacht Squad- ron, for not even royal favour” can pass

unwelcome candidate through the sacred portals Cowes.

The Jockey Club is another of the cracks.

No club confers a more authentic guarantee of good form. There may be others for which you have to be reasonably well backed before you can hope for election- but nothing like as many as in the- days when black-balling was one of the fine arts. Distinction in the arts, the sciences or the professions- is still the only passport to the Athenaenza. There is said to he no problem confronting the- human race which cannot be solved » by somebody whom you will find in the Athenaeum between the hours of 4. and 6 in the afternoon.

The old-fashioned London club was part of a social system which built a wall between the sexes, as- signing one side of the wall to men and the other to women.

system,

This was the Victorian and the old-fashioned London, clab was an essential part of that sys-

Having underrated their wor men, the men of Victoria's time got their due reward. They got the kind of women they deserved. They found they could not live with such women and they Bed from them--/ provided they could afford it.." The. middle classes could not fee, but then the middle classes never can They always have to stay at home with their womenfalic

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