Costume Piece By KATHARINE WHITEHORN O UTSIDE it was a sunny
morning; inside it was lurid night. On high stands around a swim- ming pool, the fashion press sat in darkness; strange lights played on the water, making it look like methylated spirits or green ink by turns.
'It's like going to the movies at dawn,' groaned the girl from the Woman's Mirror.
Actually it was more like a prize-day entertain- ment in the school hall, but there was a reason for that : faced with a number of rival attractions on the same morning, British Celanese had decided to lay on some divertissements to make sure the girls came along. Water ballets, rein- forced by mime, were to alternate with a swimsuit fashion parade on a stage across the water.
There was one water ballet in which five girls merely whirled around in the water and showed surprising bits of anatomy above the chlorine waves. There was one where they were gh another where one (an Ugly Duckling) pa about in a menacing mask while the others (due sat on the edge of the tank taking the weight their flippers. There was one where a captive maid in a pony-tail was put into the water allowed to flail at the end of a piece of stri like an agitated puppy on a lead : this was demonstrate the strength of the sustaining fib in her bathing dress.
`Valerie is a girl who puts a great strain on 3' suit she's wearing,' admired the swimming inst 10 for who was holding her tether. 'Three hundr, and sixty pulls on each strap.'
`They ought to demonstrate evening dresses the same way,' muttered someone in the audiell' sourly.
b f es
411, aft • Vo fOr
he, nt But the main point of the show was col durability; and there were several demonstrati of See this wet, See this dry; Cut My Throat if not Fast Dye. After two of the ballets, the girls emerged dripping on to the platform to sh how well their suits were taking it; they had a fa air of vicars' daughters surprised in their step-1 and were quickly replaced by model girls assured hair-dos and glossy tans. (The models W not, I learned, insured against getting wet, so organisers had to be careful.) The swimsuits for next summer seemed c ventional enough : no sleeves, no bikinis, and 0 one, thank goodness, of those rompers that thfl the broad-based British seem as if they are wear nappies. Along with the suits went delight' beach bags and some extraordinary hats—not big sloppy sheets of straw, but proper millii1 jobs; the effect of walking along in a swim bag and neat hat is to make a girl look as if hasn't realised she's left off her dress: most odd Throughout the show there were a bewilders' Yr Ui US bt h ri e
of
to variety of objects dragged in to show the use of Celanese materials : sunglasses, combs, a transis- ii 'tor radio set, a deck-chair and two policemen. The Cops were not actually there for themselves alone, but to demonstrate, by log-rolling, that some of L. the raw materials come from Canada.
"'This is the centre-forward and the centre-half of the Metropolitan Police polo team,' announced the instructor as one of them gingerly bestrode his log. '1 don't know what you think of the police,' he added hopefully, 'but now's your opportunity.'
Perhaps all this Aquadrama was not the greatest show on earth; but it was a step in an interesting direction : drama for the press, not the public. I await the day when we get half an hour of Beriosova to demonstrate flame-free nylon tutus.
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