PORTIA'S WIG.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 118, 22 May 1939, Page 13

PORTIA'S WIG.

WOMEN BARRISTERS.

"KISS CURL" PERMITTED.

When women were first admitted to the Bar there was a strong feeling that, instead of wigs the women barristers should wear a black velvet beret in court. This idea, however, was rejected for the curious reason that neither clients nor the public would believe the wearers to be genuine lawyers, says a writer in an English paper. Next came the business of having wigs fitted. The legal counterpart of the late Mr. Willy Clarkson arrived and set about the business of fitting the first lot of women who had been "called." With a good will his customers began adjusting their curled horsehair gear, pulling the wigs this way and that before a mirror to discover whicli were the most comfortable and/or becoming angles for each individual. Presently the wigmaker, who was not accustomed to such behaviour, cried out reproachfully: "Ladies, ladies, you are going into a court of law, not on to the stage of a theatre!"

Ultimately, and apparently on his own initiative, lie decided that a concession must be made to feminine wearers in the shaj»e of an extra small curl on the cheek at cither side—in other words, a "kiss curl." And so it came about that the wig of every woman barrister is now distinguished from her brother's by the presence of these little side curls. Otherwise there is no difference at all. One woman at least may be pardoned for thinking that the black velvet beret would have been more suitable for women counsel, especially for those with luxuriant tresses which could so much more easily have been tucked away beneath a full cap than beneath the skullfitting canvas of the male wig. But, once decided, such ordinances of the law are not lightly changed, and the formal wigs, enlivened by a couple of extra curls, are likely to continue indefinitely.