HYGIENIC CLOTHING

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 February 1927, Page 3

HYGIENIC CLOTHING

BACK TO THE UMBRELLA.

Hygienic low-necked clothing is not only producing women that can swim the Channel, but also producing women who can do without umbrellas, states the London correspondent of ihe “Manchester Guardian.” The National Union of Manufacturers, in issuing an appeal for the wider use of umbrellas to relieve the unemployment in the trade, blamed the discarding of umbrellas by young people who were either possesed of exceptionally hardy constitutions or liked to think of themselves as careless of exposure even to the elements. The umbrella makers, however, consider that this is only a vaga'ry of fashion, and that people will come back to the umbrella with renewed zest when the fashion passes.

Apparently the recent efforts to reinstate the umbrella have failed. When the Prince of Wales was in Paris early this year an appeal was made to him through the French papers to carry the umbrella “with ostentation, with pleasure, with chic.” Many parents, it is explained, had had unexpected bills to pay in consequence of their children’s indifference to recent heavy rains. The appeal was made on behalf of these fathers of families. Umbrellas, it was said, would again be seen in Paris if the Prince raised the umbrella in England. The Prince since then seems to have worn an umbrella a good, deal, although always furled, but apparently without the desired results. The interest of the incident is that it shows that it is not in England alone where young people are discarding the umbrella. Gallant, efforts have been made by young men, notably in Oxford, to discard the hat and popularise umbrellas, and thefre are stories of men at Magdalen being unable to go out because they had lost or mislaid their umbrellas. The young women, however seem to prefer Russian boots to umbrellas now that they have given up wearing nice hats.