Fur And Feathers For This Year’s Paris Hats

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30065, 25 February 1963, Page 2

Fur And Feathers For This Year’s Paris Hats

[From a Reuter Correspondent] PARIS. French milliners have declared an open season on fur and feathers. Almost every beast and bird in the African jungles and the local zoo appears in the frivolous guise of a Paris hat this winter. Exotic materials and trimmings take precedence in this coming season over new shapes.

The vogue for long-haired, bulky fur toques continues, together with matching, muffled-up collars of the same fur. Mink, ermine, fox, nutria, and leopard lead the parade. Nina Ricci, however, makes a fetish of such simple furs as grey squirrel, and Marc Bohan of Dior goes for mink, though he also uses river otter or wild opossum for berets and caps.

Effective new ideas are the large, mink pompons at Dior, used to trim scarves and sashes, matching the baseballsize pompons set on snugfitting caps. Chignon cages frequently consist of one outsize fur pompon, set on top of the head “like the dot over a letter L” Fur-trimmed hats and hoods are as popular as the fur hat. Imaginative milliners prove that almost every scrap of fur is eligible for fashion use. Pierre Cardin braids black and white mink skins into bands to edge the brims of sombreros. He shows a black velvet mandarin cap trimmed with two Chinese pigtails made of Wack mink. Silky fur, used to • frame

the face, is just as fluttering as black velvet, pearls, and candlelight. Every designer features hoods, and 99 per cent, of the hoods are edged with fur. Nina Ricci recalls the poetic heroines of Tolstoy, wearing cowled hoods bordered with mink, sable, fox, or the modest squirrel. Most hoods, either evolved in one piece from the back of the dress or coat, or cut separately like a shawl, are fashioned with cagoule or semi-monastic effects. Others appear slightly mediaeval, such as Ricci’s pink faille hood, which hugs the head like a helmet of mail and rings the face from chin to hairline with pastel mink. Yves St Laurent and Guy Laroche both favour sleek, sophisticated turbans, made of fur. Supple furs, like ermine, broadtail, and ocelot drape as easily as fabric. Laroche’s are styled like scarf head-dresses, wrapped round the face with open crowns.

St. Laurent develops his Indian Rajah theme with swami turbans made of suede edged with mink or ermine. Other attractions in St Laurent’s exciting collection of hats are the slouchbrimmed Greta Garbo cloches made of pony skin stencilled with black and white markings which imitate zebra skin. Svend, the talented Danish milliner, who left Jacques Heim to join Jacques Griffe this season. does exact copies of birettas and priest’s hats, contrived in the unlikely and luxurious media of rich black mink. Ostrich Plumes Ostrich feathers have not been as prevalent in Paris since the turn of the century —an era personified by Jean Desses in heart-shaped velvet pillboxes trimmed with waving ostrich plumes and accompanying redingote suits, and fur edged boots or gaiters. Ostrich feather* have gone through every conceivable process of bleaching, dyeing, curling, and straightening. No bird would recognise. its own feathers today after the milliners have done with them. Plumes even come in "tweed” effects, mottled in black and white, or multitoned pastel shades. Claude St. Cyr, whose London salon makes many hats for Queen Elizabeth, features ostrich feather wigs shaded to resemble the bleached streaks in a woman’s hair. Nina Ricci also uses ostrich feathers round the face in the same manner as fur. The plumes are used to edge triangular hoods and cagoules which accompany many of the formal evening costumes. Pierre Cardin and Albouy trim velvet or fabric hats with giant tufts of ostrich feathers, which have the size and shape of a feather duster.

One of the most eccentric but outrageously becoming hats ever seen in the stronghold of all the “Mad Hatters,” is Pierre Cardin’* triple-tiered wedding cake with matching ruff collar. Both the hat, whose bottom tier is 18in in diameter, and the removable collar are made entirely of frothy white plumes. Roberto Capucci treats ostrich plume* in the same theatrical manner. His version i* a life-size, busby helmet, complete with chin strap. The ostrich, however, is not the only bird on the millinery market Costly aigrette and paradise feathers have been revived in most leading collections, sharing honours with the barnyard rooster. Balenciaga, acknowledged master of weird and wonder-

ful hats, features an evening fantasy with dozens of individual aigrette* stiffened to shoot up over the head like spray from a water fountain. Balenciaga’s friend and S; anish compatriot, Castillo of Lanvin, is likewise preoccupied with feathered millinery. Castillo makes a fetish of cock feathers. He uses them in lovely bronze and changeable tone* for wig and sea urchin hats, which hide every strand of hair.