Gay Summer Hats With Suits For Cup Day

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29971, 5 November 1962, Page 2

Gay Summer Hats With Suits For Cup Day

With a fine new members’ stand and greatly improved facilities for the public on the grandstand, the Canterbury Jockey Club began a new era in its long history at the first day of the New Zealand Cup meeting at Riccarton on Saturday.

Although the day began in a sulky mood, with showers forecast, most women patrons on the new stand took a calculated risk and celebrated the occasion by wearing a gay summer hat. And as the sun became warmer so the cloakrooms filled with protective coats and umbrellas.

Navy and crisp white made up the most popular colour combination in a well-dressed crowd. It appeared in light-weight wool suits and jacket dresses, in fine wool knits, in silks and linens. Next in favouritism came a range of blues from the shades of a forget-me-not to a sapphire.

The navy-and-white theme was particularly smart in spotted fabrics, teamed discriminately with plain navy. In this group was a Chaneltype shantung suit of plain silk worn with a spotted silk blouse and a fine navy straw Breton sailor hat, faced on the upturned brim with the spotted fabric. A semi-fitting linen suit, worn with a large navy cartwheel hat in a fine straw, showed a peep of a navy-and-white striped blouse as its only contrast. Plain white linen, in suits and coats, was also teamed effectively with navy hats and accessories. Even more attractive was the cool elegance of an easy-fitting white linen eoat worn over a white linen frock, lightly patterned in black, with a black coarse straw Breton sailor hat and black suede accessories.

Outstanding among the paler blues was a periwinkle Princess-line silk coat worn with a pillbox hat of pink nylon roses and matching pink accessories. The brown-and-beige colour blend still holds its own. One young woman used it Imaginatively on large Mexican sombrero felt hat in pale beige banded round the edge of the deep brim in a spicey brown, which matched her well-cut shantung suit. With an eye on threatening clouds, the majority of the women who set out for Riccarton on Saturday left their new light frocks at home and compromised with the weather by wearing a suit. The confident ones were glad, as the day turned out, that they had choaen silk or linen. The more cautious patrons sweltered, at times, in wool.

But ■whatever the fabric a trim suit will set off a pretty hat.

Millinery Styles Bobbing around in the crowds were hats representing all the season’s new styles. There was a huge mob cap in a vivid pink nylon: a flowered toque with tiny bunches of berries falling over the wearer’s brow; stitched silk hats with folded

crowns and wide, manipulative brims which could be worn up, down or swept with a dash to one side. Mrs G. H. Grigg, wife of the chairman of the club’s committee, wore a light beige wool suit made with a stand-away neckline and tab finish. Her coarse straw Breton sailor hat and accessories were a deep fawn. Mrs D. W. J. Gould, wife of the honorary treasurer, chose an easy-fit suit of dove grey fine wool, which she teamed with a Hawthorn pink straw Breton sailor hat and black accessories. All black was the choice of Mrs P. D. Hall, wife of the chairman of the judicial stewards. Her fine straw black pillbox hat was swathed in folded nylon tulle; her black summerweight wool frock, featuring a knife-pleated skirt, was relieved by a multistrand white necklace. Visitors to the meeting included the following: The Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake); the Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr Gotz) and Mrs Gotz: Mr and Mrs A. E. 'Preston, Mr and Mrs G. R. Heasman. Mr and Mrs I. D. Reid, from Wellington; the vice-president of the New Zealand Racing Conference <Dr. A. McGregor Grant), from Auckland: Mr Justice Kinsella and Mrs Kinsella, from Australia; Sir Matthew Oram and Lady Oram, from Palmerston North; Mr and Mrs T. C. Lowry, from Hastings; Mr and Mrs Q. Donald, from Martinborough; Dr. and Mrs T. Jenkins. Mr and Mrs W. L. Cunningham. Mr and Mrs R. C. Greenslade. and Mr and Mrs D. M. Reid, from Dunedin.