Bowlers Emerging For Royal Visit

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30042, 29 January 1963, Page 12

Bowlers Emerging For Royal Visit

The ranks of regular and occasional bowler tet wearers in Christchurch are likely to be swelled, even if only temporarily, by the impending Royal visit. Some city retailers have already brought cut their meagre stocks of black “buns” from comparative obscurity to a place of prominence after numerous inanities for them.

The regular wearing of a bowler is now confined mostly to a few business and professional men. Others bring out this seldom-seen hat on special occasions, and the Royal visit is going to be one of them.

A city retailer yesterday ascribed the decline in popularity of the bowler in pan to the present “soft trend” noticeable in shirts and collars. The future for the bowler, however, was not so black.

“My own prognostication is that the next five or six years will see the return of the bowler, probably in a slightly modified form,’* he said. “It would have a fairly small brim and be navy blue er charcoal in colour. 5 * A dealer in second-hand clothes, more interested in utility than fashion, was not so optimistic. “We wouldn’t touch them, wouldn’t have them tn the shop.** be mid. The best judge of the bowler bat is the man in Hereford street who wears one every day. When asked the reason yesterday he -lid not hesitate to reply. ""Itare are several very sound reasons why I should. It is comfortable, it is economic and I have worn one since I was 17. I have only just recently bought a new one,” he mid.

Bowler hats are not made in New Zealand and those on sale in the city were made in London or Luton, the home of the hat industry in England.