SHE SAYS...

Press, Issue 32345, 10 July 1970, Page 17

SHE SAYS...

Maxi-length fashions have their defenders and their equally vehement denigrators, but no matter what your opinion, you should be aware that such fashions can present us with dangers present only rarely since grandmother’s time. Maxis are more common overseas than in New Zealand, and not surprisingly it is overseas that the dangers have shown up. The maxis are easily shut in cardoors and in lift-gates, occasionally they have become tangled with the heels of wearers’ shoes and sent them sprawling—which can be dangerous if you are hurrying across the road ahead of approaching cars—and they also tend to snag on controls when the wearers are getting in and out bf cars. The fashions are also reported to be especially dangerous on bicycles or motor-cycles. “Wear clothes suitable for what you are doing,” is the rule to follow, and where long skirts are concerned, more than one woman has had an accident because she tried to drive while wearing a ball-gown and high heels. Anything long, loose and flowing is likely to be unsuitable for driving, and you can include big, floppy hats, very loose bracelets and loose scarves under this general heading. Perhaps the best - known I example of the danger pre-;

sented by loose scarves is the death of the famous dancer Isadora Duncan—you may recall she was killed when her long scarf, blowing in the slipstream of the open car in which she was riding, caught in the car’s turning rear wheel. But it is not hard to forget such things, and it is so easy just to hop in the car to go to the store without even considering that the long maxi-skirt might easily catch in something at the wrong time: perhaps in a part of the seat mechanism just as you try to move your foot quickly to the brake pedal for an emergency stop.