HEADGEAR FOR MEN

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27058, 5 June 1953, Page 2

HEADGEAR FOR MEN

WOMEN’S VIEWS ON STYLE AND COLOUR (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, May 20. Male headgear experts are still puzzling over the results of a questionnaire submitted to 500 women in Manchester recently by the Hatters’ Information Centre in that city. With the objective of increasing trade and in the knowledge that most wives accompany their husbands while they are buying hats, the hatters asked women to suggest new and becoming styles for men’s hats. Some of the answers they received were as surprising as the women’s own tastes in personal headgear. The prize for the most original suggestion went to the wife who asked that hatters design a hat suitable for bald men to wear around the house, “preferably with a detachable brim for comfort.” .Other female experts asked for more colour in men’s headgear, while some wanted a return to the straw boater with coloured ribbons. For leisure wear, the women preferred the trilby, the homburg (preferably grey), and the bowler, while for sports wear they voted for the trilby, the cap, and the “tyrolean” or “pork pie” trilbies. One wife reported that she liked her husband to wear a green trilby as he had such nice ginger hair, but another took the view that her husband’s ginger hair was so striking that he should not cover' it at all.

On the commercial and statistical level, the hatters found out that 21 per cent, of the women questioned preferred their men hatless, 63 per cent, like men to wear hats, and 16 per cent, liked them to wear one occasionally. Seventy-four per cent, thought a hat improved a man’s appearance, 22 per cent, thought it Improved men sometimes, while the remainder resignedly reported that even a hat could no't bring about an improvement to their consorts’ appearance. Forty per cent, of the women questioned who admitted to being under 30 liked their escorts to be hatless and the "under thirties” also voted for green as their favourite colour in men’s hats. Older women inclined towards the severer homburg and bowler styles, and their favourite colours were brown and grey. When the hatters have completed similar surveys in Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds, and London they will assess feminine tastes before deciding on new hat styles. The final report will be used mainly not to determine the most popular lines, but to avoid the styles and colours that the female experts do not like.