EXPERTS ON NUDITY WANTED

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 224, 21 September 1929, Page 9 (Supplement)

EXPERTS ON NUDITY WANTED

The "Prud'hommes" of Paris —the "sage and prudent rjen," that is to say, who are chosen by their fellows to settle disputes between employers and employed—have been set a pretty problem by a Queen of Beauty. Mile, (-tabard, having for one day tasted Queen of Paris the pleasure of magnificence, evidently saw before her in ofler of a music hall manager the possibility of prolonging into an indefinite, futuie the splendour and applause. But when the ex-Queen reached her dressing room, what did she find set out for her to wear? A dress that did not deserve the name of dress at all, she declared indignantly, and certainly not compatible with the dignity of Queen of Paris. Ko without more ado she shook the dust of the music hall oil' her feet and returned to the dressmaker's shop. But Mile. Gabard had a contract which could not be broken. So far there is nothing in all this to bother the "prud hommes. But it is the motive that led to the breaking of the agreement that is the complication; in other words, Mile. Gabard's refusal to appear on the stage in a costume that divulged all the grace of her shapely limbs. Now a "fetnme nue" belongs to a special category among the employees of a music hall, and the question which the ''sage and prudent men" have to solve is at what point of "undress" a "figurante" becomes a "femme nue," and whether it is for the individual or the management to decide the limits at which modesty may be legitimately called upon to blush.