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Show Peasants of Poland Like Their Colors; Women Wear Mixtures of Bright Shades In no corner of the world has modern fashion in dress made less headway than in the Polish countryside. country-side. The spinning wheel and the ioom still hold their place of honor, and homespun still is the garb of 75 per cent of the peasants. There are four main groups of peasant costumes in Poland. The two most striking are in and around Lowicz, and on the southeastern border of Poland among the Huculs. The others are to be found among the Gorals in the Zakopane district and in Upper Silesia, notes a writer in the Detroit News. Lowicz skirts are made from the famous rainbow wool, showing wide stripes of orange and canary yellow yel-low alternating with narrow strips of blacks and browns, violet and amaranth, rich chocolate hues, deep purples, green and rose. But yellow seems to prevail, a yellow as radiant radi-ant as the California poppy. The fashion comes straight from the native soil, for the women weave just what they see through their door- long, narrow fields which at a distance look like vari-colored stripes on the landscape. These women wear close fitting vests with horizontal stripes and their white linen blouses have loose sleeves, sometimes gayly embroidered. embroid-ered. The Huculs run to bright colors, which would be considered somber if compared with those of Lowicz. A unique feature is that the women wear aprons instead of skirts one apron fore and another aft The result re-sult is a close fitting garment with plenty of looseness for riding and mountain climbing. And this is being be-ing considered by stylists for sports wear as a variation on the coulettes that have recently been the rage. The sleeveless lambskin coats worn by these women also are adapted for winter sports. They usually are made with the fur side in, and the outer skin embroidered -in gay colors. They give plenty of free arm play and keep the torso toasty warm. Hucul women wear them all winter in the icy mountain moun-tain blasts. |