Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1880 — FASHION FANCIES. [ARTICLE]

FASHION FANCIES.

Wooden trays for serving are finished with ebony rims and handles. Porcelain lamps for oil andgas droplights mounted with porcelain are favorite gifts this winter. The Hartford ferns are used in great quantities by the designers of pat? terns for lace draperies. Small boxes for postage-stamps are of embossed leather, with two comportments covered with gloss. Book covers of canvas ore wrought with crewels and put over books, to protect them when being used. English powder-puffs are now made with long handles, and the new style is said to be a great improvement. A new piece for the library table is apair of scales for weighing letters. These scales are of ormolu, and cost $24. Old silver candlesticks of the square style, used long ago, and branching candelabra of silver are again in fashion. “Tete-a-tete,” of the Boston Tranocriptj accuses the New York milliners of using a crucifix fer an ornament to hats. Among the pretty flower baskets of the season are those woven of Indian flag and trimmed on the outside with ferns and carnations. Ormolu mounted with porcelain is the newest fa for library sets, such as ink-stands with pen-trays, and low candlesticks for the table. Seal-skin and alligator-skin are used for poctemonnaies, letter cases and card cases in preference to the perishable Russia leather. Panels fbr screens are embroidered in heraldic designs in gold thread and colors. A 'very pretty panel design is a spray of the Cherokee rose. Little tables covered with plush light up the dark corners of a room wonderfully, and if a pretty vase be be set upon them, so much the better. The most ambitions of rug comers may be made to lie flat by fastening it to a triangle of sheet lead. The metal is covered with dark silk, and does not show.

Ladies’ silver card-cases are revived, and are provided with a chain to pass around the hand for holding them securely. The price of them is from $6.50 upwards. Nothing matches nowadays in drawing-rooms. Nobody thinks of buying two of a kind, and even two candelabras on the same mantelpiece must differ one fromthe other. As the Baroness Nathaniel de Rothschild has so much money she does not know what to do with it, she easily found a purchaser at S6OO of a water color picture she had painted. The diamond dealers in this city, and especially those who have come hither from Europe, give the ladies of New York the credit of being the best Judges of diamonds in the world. Dark walls, carpets and eurtains require a good deal of glitter to relieve them. Hence, much attention is now paid to the disposition of mirrors and sconces, and whatever will reflect tlie light and flash back a sun ray or gas-, flame. The sapphire of deepest blue is the favorite of the moment for fingerrings, and is oftenest combined with diamonds in hoop-shade, straight around the finger, or else in a diagonal row of stones. *• Dahlia was considered the “comiag color” in the French metropolis at the beginning of the winter season. But now the correspondents say the Parisians seem to prefer “canelle rougerate”—whatever that may be. There is a riew fashion in Paris of wearing bracelets above the elbow instead of round the wrist, and, if a bracelet is wanting a brooch -epre* senting a lizard, made entirely of diamonds, replaces it. This is seen with a theatre toilet.

The Teutonic mind is eminently practical, even in its pleasures, ana nowhere but in Germany would you be likely to And a fan, recently invented there, concealing in its first fold needles and thread to repair damages, if the wearer’s gown be torn at a ball. A correspondent of the London Queen relates that she is acquainted with a lady, an experienced housekeeper, who, unless she feels that she is very well dressed, never gives a lecture to a servant. If the idea should spread, we shall have ladies providing scolding costumes. The candle of the day is gorgeously arrayed. It has a candlestick, of course, which is, perhaps, a griffin or a dragon’s mouth; then it has a little paper shade bordered with fringe and a tiny silk banner screen with a decoration in water color or feather work, and a velvet border, and three tassels withal. Among the beautiful small pieces of silvec displayed for holiday gifts, the quaint little tea-caddy is a favorite with housekeepers. It is shown in antique dark silver, in the iridescent colored silvers and with Japaneese decoratiods, and comes carefully wrapped in a bag of rare eastern stuffs, The lowest prices are $25. If you were in Paris now and mingled with the haut ton and creme de la creme and all that sort of thing, and gave you* arm to 5 a lady under any other circumstances than on entering a dining-room, you would incur the penalty of banishment from society. At all events, that is what theGaulois says, and that journal will not hesitate to assure you that what it does not know about etiquette is not worth knowing.