If the French craze for plaids and tartans be followed in England, it will be as well to remind everyone that there are certain people to whom they are quite forbidden. I refer to the very stout and the very thin. And it is to be hoped that these two classes may be wise in season and avoid them. For the rest, the new plaids are, some of them, pretty and in quiet hues, though I noticed, when in Paris, that people liked them more vivid as to colouring, and one consequently saw some very lively-looking ones in scarlet and bright red. These plaids are more used as skirts than as entire dresses; in fact, the newest departure in coats and skirts is to have the skirt of plaid and the coat of a plain cloth which suits it in colour. For this purpose a sacque coat is always used, and this is a fortunate thing, for they suit all figures, thin and stout, equally well; but they, more than any other description of jacket, require a good cut, as they are so easily made to hitch up or to droop at the back by an inexperienced cutter. And the oddest part of it is that no alteration seems to do any good, for the trouble appears to lie deeper than that, in the very foundation of the jacket. [Illustration: JACKET WITH ROUNDED FRONTS. GOWN WITH TUNIC.] The few notes that I have collected together on the subject of furs I will use at the beginning of my article. Fur trimmings of all kinds are very much worn, and so many of the winter gowns are decorated with fur bands, that the fashion seems like a uniform. The peculiarity of this form of trimming is that this season it must be accompanied by bands of brightly-coloured velvet and generally with braid. Seal and sable are constant favourites, and they will be used in combination for the fitted-back jackets or sacque-backed ones, which are the two shapes for fur jackets at present. Skunk and bear, which were last year so popular, have fallen out of favour; but caracul is much used, and has not been freshly named this year. So far as I can see, white satin seems to be the popular lining for all fur jackets and capes, though I have seen one or two lined with gold colour and pale blue. The capes of fur follow the fashion of those in cloth and are flounced just as they were last year, many of them; but this year the flounces are wider and more visible to the eye. The collars of all fur garments are very high. And, lastly, I must mention that long fur boas are expected to take the place of the feather ones to which we have been so faithful.