Shorts?—‘By All Means’

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32215, 6 February 1970, Page 14

Shorts?—‘By All Means’

“Yes, by all means wear shorts to the office if the weather is hot,” the Savile Row fashion designer, Hardy Amies, said in Christchurch yesterday.

“Shorts would certainly be out of place in London on white-legged npbbly-kneed men, but here your men are sturdy and athletic. They are absolutely right if they want to go to work in shorts,” he said. But Mr Amies laid down some rules. “Shorts should definitely not be baggy nor too long. They should be worn with a suitable jacket, a scarf instead of a tie and certainly not lace-up shoes,” he said. Mr Amies had words of advice for the men whose finances did not permit them to spend freely on clothes. “If one can afford a suit once every two years he should aim to buy two suits to last three years and pick those that are as forward looking in fashion as possible,” he said. Mr Amies strongly supported the belief that a man’s clothes influence his chances of success in his career, but agreed that men’s fashions are closely allied to the male’s desire to please the female. Last year the Amies tag sold clothes, worth $l7 million. He dismissed the suggestion that he was the director of fashion. He admitted having authority stemming from his reputation as a designer, but said his power was limited by the demands of manufacturers. Mr Amies spends much of his time travelling between London, New York, San Francisco, Australia and New Zealand. His present trip to Christchurch is his first. Today he will leave for Timaru and spend the week-end at Bluecliffs station. The photograph shows a Hardy Amies suit being modelled in Christchurch yesterday.