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Designing queen

Polly Hornburg has so successfully crystallized an idyllic way of life in her designs that now she is known far beyond her native Bermuda

The smiling woman photographed above is the unquestioned queen of fashion in the Caribbean area. She is Polly Hornburg, a native Bermudian who, with her Minnesota-born husband, John, has in eight years created a business which furnishes fashions for the half dozen Calypso shops owned by the Hornburgs in Bermuda and Jamaica and hundreds of stores in the U.S. as well.

Typical Hornburg play clothes are made of exotic fabrics: African Gold Coast cotton prints, Indian madras, Siamese and Indian silks. She made the full-length hostess skirt of brightly printed cotton the approved way of dress for southern resort evenings and now is responsible for women's evening pants, which are now being worn at Caribbean nightclubs such as Montego Bay's La Ronde.

Most recently, Polly, a snorkeler herself, has made quite a splash with her skin-divers' suits—long-handled swimsuits which are equally attractive wet or dry and are warm enough for the chilly depths.

The Hornburg fashions on these pages are at the Calypso shops in Bermuda and Jamaica and at J. P. Allen, G. Fox, Jenny Co., Neiman-Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue in the U.S.

AT HOME AT STANWICK: Designer Polly Hornburg in hostess skirt of glittered batik (to order, $45), pongee shirt ($18.50).

At home after 5, anywhere in the Caribbean: Coral Sayer's silk plaid dinner pants ($40) with a matching blouse ($40); Ann Bindon's multicolor madras jumper, which has glitter outlining the plaid ($20), and fishtail skirt ($27).

At home in or out of the water: skin-diver suit of elasticized cotton knit ($30), worn by Henrietta Tiarks, an avid skin-diver who vacations at her father's houses in Bermuda and Jamaica. She is photographed with the Marquess of Tavistock, who is currently in his freshman year at Harvard.

AT HOME ON A BEACH: Coral in parti-colored pants ($19) and a white jumper ($11), worn with a Noel Coward banana-palm hat ($5); and Bernadette Zell's Calypso bikini (to order). Fishermen Tony Trott and Horace Almeida handle the fishing net.

FOUR PHOTOS

TONI FRISSELL