Connecticut College Alumnae News, March 1952
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Connecticut College Digital Commons @ Connecticut College Linda Lear Center for Special Collections & Alumni News Archives 3-1952 Connecticut College Alumnae News, March 1952 Connecticut College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/alumnews Recommended Citation Connecticut College, "Connecticut College Alumnae News, March 1952" (1952). Alumni News. 96. https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/alumnews/96 This Magazine is brought to you for free and open access by the Linda Lear Center for Special Collections & Archives at Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Alumni News by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author. Connecticut College Alumnae News I923: Library on the march from New London Halt to new Palmer Library March 1952 CONTENTS Fashion and You by Edna S~1Ilel's 3 Space, Books, and Architecture by Betty FtlJJc/l 5 10 Alumnae Council Weekend Held On Campus 11 The Suggestion Box 15 Class Notes 16 Cover. The ext ensice line of book-burdelled stndents represents thaI actio II, III/;qlll? ;/1 the bisrorr of Connecticut College, knOWN as Operation Library, or the Library March. See "Strace. Books, and Architecture" for more de/ails. Published by the Connecticut College Alumnae Association at Connecticut College, 751 Williams Street, New London, Conn four times a year 10 December, March, May and August. Subscription price $2 per year. Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office, New London, Conn., under the act of March 3. 1879. Executive Board of the Alumnae Association, 1950-1952 President Directors MRS. RICHARD W. MEYER (Mary Anna Lemon '42) MARJORY JONES '28 96 Hen Hawk Road, Great Neck, N. Y. 360 Edwards Street, New Haven First Vice-President NATALIE MAAS '40 J\·fRS. THOMAS COCHRAN (Rosamond Beebe '26) Radnor, Pa. 115 Broadway, New York 6 Second Vice-President JUNE MORSE '42 DOROTHY WHEELER '22 7 Millett Road, Swampscott, Mass. 120 Ansonia Street, Hartford Alumnae Trustees Recording Secretary l\!rRS. H. RICHARD HEILMAN (Eleanor Jones '33) MRS. JAMES G. RAYBURN (Leann K. Donahue '41) 16712 Stockbridge Avenue, Cleveland, O. Aldwyn Lane, Vill anovn, Pn. Treasurer ~\'[RS. OLIVER BUTTERWOJ{TH (Miriam F. Brooks '40) MRS. ALYS GRISWOLD HAMAN (Alys Griswold '36) Sunset Farm, West Hartford 7 Old Lyme CATHARINE GREER '29 Chairman of Finance Committee New Hackensack Rd., Poughkeepsie, N. Y. MRS. CHARLES T. CADDOCK (Emily Warner '25) 144 Waverly Place, New York, N. Y. Executive Secretary and Editor of Alumnae News Chairman of Nominating Committee KATHRYN MOSS '24 MRS. JOSEPH S. SUDARSKY (Edith Gaberman '43) Alumilae Office, Connecticut College 8 Iroquois Road, West Hartford New London Editorial Staff Editor AS.':lociate Editors KATHRYN MOSS '24 Alumnae Office, Connecticut College, New London OLIVIA JOHNSON '24 471 Pequot Avenue, New London, Conn. Editorial Assistant MRS. BETTY H. FUSSELL MRS. JOHN BERNARD (Marie Hart '39) 8 E. 9th Street, New York, New York Alumnae Office, Connecticut College, New London FRANCES GREEN "6 Business Manager 55 Holman Street, Shrewsbu~y, Mass, MRS. At YS G. HAMAN (Alys Griswold '36) MRS. Old Lyme. Conn. JOHN R. MONTGOMERY, jR, (Edith Mill" '44) 75 Longhtll Road, Springfield, Mass. Connecticu t College Alumnae News OFFICIAL PUBUC.-\TlON OF THE CONNECTICUT COLLEGE ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION N~MBER 2 VOLUME XXX MARCH, 1952 Fashion and You By EDNA SOMERS '28 After grad1tatioll Edna Somers attended the Prince School of Fashion and became a trainee III [asbian and merchandising in Bas/oil. In 1935 she became Fashion Direc- lor for JordaJl Marsh, B~J/o1l'S fame~ depar/men! store. Her reputation (IS a fashion expert 'who condncts [asbion Jh01~)S With a",~zjng btnnor and high spirits 'was,affirmed last yeti!" by tbose who UJIIJleJSed III the Moh/call Hotel the 1928 rennion fashion show llJbJeh. under Ednal J direction, was an enormous success. In this video-age, when or, jf you're a mail order shopper, in the pages of your it's almost impossible to favorite catalogue. get a good evening's con- There is no doubt that the tempo of life has increased, versation, because of om- with the result that the tempo of fashion is accelerated. nipresent television, "talk- Many new fashions are short-lived. A few months may ing" a fashion story, rather than dramatizing it becomes encompass its introduction, acceptance, and decline. This difficult. Fashion is a very personal thing, inextricably means there has to be a constant stream of new ideas to tied in with a woman's emotions. It's bound to mean keep in motion the vast industry of making, promoting, and sdling women's clothes. So if you suddenly find your- something quite different to nearly every woman. What does Fashion mean to you? Something to read self in a state of confusion regarding the long basque line about when you sit under a hair-drier, something to chat versus the cinch waist, pleated skirt silhouette; Japanese about over canasta or a five o'clock cocktail? Or is, it a Samurai colors versus Italian blues and greens, don't suc- gigantic conspiracy concocted by couturiers with unpro- cumb to sudden impatience with the problem. Be grateful nounceable names (unless you were a language major); that there is a choice. And do think of the problem in promoted by devious press agentry, and a reason for an relation to yourself. By that I mean think of current fash- eternally recoiling budget. It could be anyone of those ion in relation to your own type and temperament, your things, I suppose, plus many other reactions. way of life, and specifically in relation to your anatomy For me it's big business. About eighth in the na- and coloring. If clothes are carefully selected to empha- tion's industries, it keeps hundreds of thousands of people size your individuality, there is no reason for you ever to employed making over ten billion dollars worth of apparel find yourself on the horns of that all too familiar dilemma for the women of America. It's not the prerogative of of having "nothing to wear". the few, it's the concern of many. For all of us, it's Fashion should be a tool to make living more pleas- change, a kind of walking history, an important force in ant, more entertaining. When it is, it can be a great aid everyone's life. Fashion is neither created nor worn in a in developing an effective personality. Every well-rounded vacuum; it is a reflection of what people are doing, think- personal ity needs the confidence that becoming clothes ing and saying, and nothing could be more fallacious than give, if only to free the mind for other things, whether thinking that fashions are forced upon the public by ar- those things have to do with Junior's expensive college tists who live in ivory towers, or by aggressive manufac- degree, the payments on the deep freeze, crime prevention, turers. The success of a fashion is determined by its gen~ or who for the White House. Because Fashion is a Fe··- era I consumer acceptance, rather than by a few fashion sonal thing, it is in the application of fashion to yourself, leaders. Actually it's your acceptance that makes or breaks that we find its highest expression. a fashion and brings success or failure to a project that Knowing the current fashion story, which can be eas- perhaps has involved months of work and effort, before it ily learned by reading your favorite fashion magazines, has appeared on the shelves or racks of your favorite store, attending fashion shows, and keeping your eyes and ears 3 open, is only part of the story. In the application, lies the choice of a loose coat or a full-skirted fitted coat, some- difference between being well-dressed or truly individual. times back-belted. Obviously, when women make a fetish of fashion, their To interpret these silhouettes, there are extraordi- friends can never catalogue them and their families are apt narily handsome fabrics, crisp and textured, every bit as. to begin a bowing acquaintance with the neighborhood beautiful as the silk fabrics of the t cth century. The nibs psychiatrist. You ask why? Well, glancing backward, and ribs, slubs and nubs give the most unimportant fabric this whole-hearted female in 1948 would have walked an important look. The poodles of winter have become- around with clothes flapping around her ankles, a victim souffled. There are many permutations and combinations of "the new look." In 1949, undoubtedly she had the of the three important fabrics-shantung, taffeta and faille, "slender, fluid look," and in 1950, she was a devotee of so that your fabric fashion vocabulary will include fabrics the "natural, young look" with short, rather Italian Renais- such as shantung-surah, taffeta-surah, shantung-faille, taf- sance hairdo; a rounded bust, a flattened derriere (if she feta-faille, shantung-gauze, and many others. The names- was able to manage it), and exotic eye makeup. This past sound like double talk, and in a way, it is-a double of- year she's probably gone from the sheath silhouette to the fering of beauty and practicability. In woolens there are bell, and her chignon has been replaced with first the new surfaces, weaves, textures and colors. The most im- bouffant coiffure, and now the poodlecut. Sounds stren- portant perhaps: ribs plus nibs. A worsted flannel rubbed uous, doesn't it, with the net result quite unworthy of the with color, like a grocery list that may be uninspiring to effort.