The Fashions

The present, fsishionablo bonnet is simply a large hat with Howing brim, and upon it and insido of its upward front resta a conservatory of flowers. [ There are numerous otlier shapes, eadh pretty, soine coquettish, all becoming, ; light and graceful withfli. Straw is disappearing and in its place is chip of the [ lighest and finest eer, dust color, drab, black and white. Tho English round bat will be very popular as aftbrding pro' tection co the eyes. All of the hats have drooping streamers behind, but there are 110 strings and very few feathers areseen. j As the beauty of the bonnet consista in ! the heaped-up masses of flowers on the front, there is evidently no room yet for ! the proposod change in vails. The stift' scrap of lace or tulle will, therefore, continue in use placed under the hat, to the j injury of the cyes, and with the loss of i the grace given by floating lace. The i newest shapes imported are called La Bfurie, Lucia, the Bistori, the Bon Ton, and in English, the Warwick, with a high round crown and flaring brim ; the very piquant Girona turned up at the left sido. A coquettish sailor hat is called Castalia ; and there are other shapes, the front or back being decided by the trimming. For early spring and cool summer days there is a large display of "suitings," so called from being made up simply ,' with other fabrics in a euifc. These are ; in all wool broken plaids, extremely soft ! and fliie, of single width, called camel's I hair ; twilled, damasked, diamondbloeked, bird's cye and diagonal, in drabs, grays, blue-gray, and j tinted grou'ud, with thread-like bars and broken lines of blue, red, dashes of green, dull blue and gold color. The j overskirt and basque are made of these fabrics, and tho skirt a.nd sleeves of silk, the color of the darkest or most prominent dark shade of the plaid. These I cost 80 cents and $1 a yard. All Oriental I stuffs are f ast gaining popularity ; j cate grey Japanese silks of this season j have tiny black figures scattered over their surface with here and there au embossed white flossy silk iigure, giving an exceedingly silvery look by gaslight. Black silks are more lustrous than they have been for many years past, and rnuch tiner in the reps. American silks are steadily gaining in popularity on account of their rich appearance, durability and freedom from all chemical dyes and mixtures. The colored silks of tliis manufacture come in all the new fashionable tints - the Oxford, a cold, blue gray; a Russian gi-ay of pinkish lme ; seal brown and beige brown; jujube, a red brown Hke puste; ill shades of steel and dust color and olive and bronze greens, deep green, and violet mergiug iuto plum shades. Besides these are all the light evening shades. The colored American silks are cspecially adapted for street wear. A novelty this spring is guipure grenadine, or called by others cvru linen, open worked in Hamburg designs, or like English embroidery, so very open that scarccly any of the fabric is to be seej. At present, fashions seem to have settled into the cuirass and long apron, scanty sldrts with much less trimming, and quantities of shirr. Shirring is introduced in sleeves, waists, aprons, headings of ñounces and ruffles. The ñgure will not be disguised by voluminous drapery and quantities of trimming. It is impossible. to do away with the useful, pretty and económica! polonaise, covering as it does a multitude of evils in the way of shorteomings in the dresses of a past season. So they come again in cashmere, silk-trimmed, and jet-embroidered, and in braided and embroidered camel's hair. There are several important changes in fashionable jewelry. A taste for colored stones is revived, in accordance with the passion for everything Oriental in dress.