Modern Screen (Dec 1947 - Nov 1948)

Your Shoes Sh owinq! ^ ShinolA ft WHITE WHITE # Shinola's scientific comb.nat.on / of oily woxes helps keep shoes flexible-and new-looking longer. n Shinolo is easy to apply and eco s to* uTr^ Send for our illustrated Catalog D showing the variety of styles you can order by mail! nderella 59 TEMPLE PLACE. BOSION 11, MASS. THIS IS MY BEST (Continued from page 46) to wear housedresses throughout all the reels. That's why I hate ginghams. They represent drudgery to me. "My favorites are suits. Cocktail suits, dinner suits, and my 'very special' is an all-service suit of light wool gabardine with a black skirt and a flaming red hiplength coat. I call it my 'cheerer-upper.' I always feel comfortable and well dressed in it and it really gives me a lift — the color, I mean." In Ifs a Wonderful Life and now, again, in The Life of Monty Stratton, Donna has to wear house dresses, but she can at least go back and forth from the studio, exquisitely tailored. Dorothy Lamour likes suits, too, but she goes in for very elegant ones. Her pet is a svelte formal suit with an embroidered coat and a gracefully draped skirt which designer Jean Louis did for her before she started to work in her current film, Lulu Belle. Dottie hates slacks because she thinks they are so unbecoming to the feminine figure. She prefers flowing lines and rich materials. Anything reminding her of a sarong will be tossed right out the window. Doris Day, on the other hand, is a big slacks champion. "Brother, if anything ruffles me, it's ruffles. I can't stand these frilly things and, if the studio would let me, I'd wear slacks in pictures," says Doris, who is now in My Dream Is Yours. "Maybe it's the tomboy in me, but I don't think anything is more comfortable and looks nicer than a beautifully tailored pair of white slacks. You can wear a bright coat or a colorful striped blazer and believe me, it's a pick-up. I loathe dressing up, and perhaps that's why I love California; I don't have to. I don't own a hat and don't intend to. Those gals who want to get all frilled up and lunch at Romanoff's can have it. It's the casual life for me." Ruth Warwick is "plaid-happy." Her mother was Annie Laurie Scott, which may account for it. Anyway, she loves to wear plaids, preferably red, black and white ones. More than that, she even uses the same plaid material and pattern for her luncheon cloths, napkins and patio drapes as she does for her clothes. Another gal who goes for household materials is Virginia Grey. When Vir ginia, who is currently in So This Is New York, saw the design that Barbara Barondess MacLean had made for the fittings for Ojai Valley Inn, she told Barbara, "I want to look like that chair!" So Barbara whipped up a peasant skirt of the gay and colorful print, combined it with a Valley Green crepe blouse. Ginny says, "I feel like a tea-cozy." Ida Lupino's pet is a pair of pedal pushers of blue and chartreuse. It isn't • just because she likes to bicycle. Ida lives way up on a mountain top and she says that pedal pushers go with a mountain top — they're free and breezy. Ida's anathema is a beaded dress. For one of her first Hollywood parties she spent two weeks' salary on a creation of bugle beads. "It served its purpose when it came to making an entrance, but the exit was a nightmare. A 'friend' of mine said, 'Darling, you look ravishing, but there's a loose thread there at your shoulder.' She pulled it and I literally unraveled all over the party. My hostess was still picking up bugle beads around the house two days later. Since then I've felt about a beaded dress the way I feel about the electric chair." Joan Bennett likes hostess gowns and Irene Dunne prefers dresses and suits of the utmost simplicity. But the most rugged individualist of them all is Betty Hutton. "No matter what Paris says," declares Betty, "I'm not going to clutter up my life with bustles or hobble skirts. I like to dress appropriately for any occasion outside, but when I'm home, let me slip into a pair of Levis and live!" While most of the stars we talked to, Donna Reed, Doris Day, Ruth Warwick, etc., all seemed to like red or various shades of red, it's the one color Hutton can't stand in her clothes. "You know why?" she asked. '"When I first went to New York to sing with a band, the orchestra leader, who didn't know clothes from a lead sheet, thought I should make my first appearance in a flaming red dress. I guess he didn't have much confidence in my voice. I didn't either, so I wore a red dress and I was so frightened and nervous I laid an egg. Since that_day I really see red when they show me anything to wear in that color." MODERN SCREEN