Specially For Husbands

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXX, Issue 13511, 5 December 1941, Page 3

Specially For Husbands

"Yes, madam, we have some cheap hats at 4 9s 6d," said a Piccadilly milliner to me the other afternoon, writes Joanna Chase in the London Daily Mail.

"Cheap," I murmured, at 49s 6d? That seems to me a very good price to pay for a hat. How much is the I little black toque in the corner?" I "That is 3h guineas, madam. But it is worth it. It is an excellent fur felt, and you can have it remodelled next year, when there there may not be enough dyes available to get a good black hat." I walked out into the street and looked at all the men hurrying by, and wondered how many of them knew their wives were buying "cheap" hats at 49s 6d. They probably haven't realised that all the feminine excitement and joy which went into buying a new coat, a new frock, set of silk under- ' wear, and smart shoes is now concenj trated, in all its fury, upon the only 1 feminine apparel still unrationed — hats.

But could it be true, I wondered. Are women buying more hats? I tried another milliner. Yet, they are. I understand from those in the trade that the woman who previously bought three hats a year, will now buy four or five. Another item of interest to men is that there is a romping trade in hats made from customers' own oddments of fur. Time, gentlemen, to set the moth among the little bit of mink her mother gave her. Even one ermine tail will make a model. Men may be thankful, anyhow, that the milliners say women are buying better, more flattering hats. The pull-on pudding-basin no longer exists. With the non-release of furs, the scarcity of felt, women insist that

their felt hats are as well tailored as the suits with which they are to wear them. Also, there is a shortage of hairpins, and no time these days to go often to the hairdresser. Which means it is no longer possible to have the hair dressed up to a non-sensical hat. The hat has to look good however the hair is.