Girl Models Have New Aristocracy

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXV, Issue 12390, 30 July 1937, Page 5 (Supplement)

Girl Models Have New Aristocracy

Although there are girl models in Sydney who pose, nude, for about 2s an hour, an artisocracy of models has recently grown up whose members may earn £1 Is for a quarter of an hour’s work. The former pose for artists and art students. The latter are the girls you see in pictorial advertisements wearing chic hats, descending- with escorts in tails for dinner on palatial liners, .or snow-balling at Kosciusko in smart jumpers and wool caps. Qualifications differ between the two groups. For the artist’s model, shape of body is more important than a pretty face. But good looks are essential for the “commercial’’ model, who is not asked to pose in the nude. The commercial model may get a guinea for a few minutes' work, posed perhaps in a liner’s de luxe cabin. Some of these girls earn £6 or £7 a week. In addition, to beauty of face, however, they must have education, social poise and the sense of “style.” No Nudity “Such models are numerous in Sydney,” said Mr Russell Roberts, photographic illustrator. “I have probably 1000 names in my index, and photographs of about 500 models. All come from respectable families, and many from families of social standing. The girls do the work as a ‘sideline,’ finding it easy, pleasant and remunerative.” Models for commercial or fashion work never wear less than a bathing costume or under-garments, unless for an occasional very discreet photograph to illustrate somebody’s porcelain bath-tubs.” “It is a mistake to suppose that because artists’ models pose in the nude their morals are necessarily any worse than the average woman’s,” said Mr J. S. Watkins, the painter. “It’s just a job. The student in art needs a model with a good figure rather than one with good looks.”

MUSSOLINI’S CRIME REVEALED BY DE BONO

That Mussolini planned the invasion of Abyssinia long before the frontier dispute at Wai-wai, which was made the pretext for the Italian aggression; and that, while he was preparing the attack, he signed a Convention against the acquisition of territory by force; are now admitted in an official account of the affair written by Marshal de Bono,, the Italian command-er-in-chief. De Bono was dismissed by Mussolini after the invasion had been going on slowly for seven weeks. He resented this bitterly. “I said that it gave me pleasure to learn of my recall. But that was a great lie.” So he writes at the end of “Anno XIII.” The title means “In the thirteenth year,’ ’that is, the 13th of Mussolini’s Fascist rule. Duce Admits Guilt This year was 1935 and the invasion, unprovoked as is now bpenly confessed, started in October. De Bono shows that it had been decided on more than two years before. It might be supposed that de Bono wrote his book out of spite, in order to get back at Mussolini for superseding him. But it is very hard to believe that any book of which the Duce disapproved could be published in Italy, as this one has been. It seems plain, therefore, that Mussolini must have decided to drop the pretence that Abyssinia provoked the war and to stand before the world as the ruthless and faithless conqueror of a weak country abandoned by its friends to be struck savagely down. , He ordered that there should be no declaration of war. He allowed a “Treaty of Friendship” with Abyssinia to remain. D© Bono says naively that, to have given notice to end it would have put the Abyssinians on their guard! Taken Unawares They were to be taken unawares. The Italians had represented their military preparations as “purely a defensive measure.” De Bono repeats this absurdity, in spite of its being proved absurd by his own admissions. Never was a crime more deliberately and cynically planned. The planning must have been known to the British Embassy in Rome, and therefore to the Foreign Office in London. Why was it not reported to the League of Nations? Or was it reported, and did the League authorities disregard the warning?