SEMI-NUDIST CULT

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 12887, 13 June 1936, Page 9

SEMI-NUDIST CULT

BARE HEADS: BARE LEGS. CRITICISM BY VISITORS FROM OVERSEAS. LORD BA ENBV, tnc well-known leader in the English textile industry, was surprised at the number o r hatless vou/ig men lie observed is his travels through New Zealand, and a lady visitor of an observant nature has also commented on the attempt of a- section of the younger females to set an example of going without stockings to their business occupations. Both of these overseas observers, states the “New Zealand Draper. were puzzled as to whether the no-hat and no-stockings cult were the result ol the depression, and the en- ! creed economics which the slump had forced on the younger generation, or whether it was a sympathetic approach toward nudist ideals, and the escape from the tyranny of clothes by starting on the extremities and seeing how far the experiment was successful, before abandoning further garments in the hope of regaining our lost Carden of Eden and reverting to the Age of Innocence. Our visitors agreed that in England, Canada or the United States the absence of a hat on an otherwise fairly well-dressed man would he a subject for sympathetic comment, and attributed to an accident loss rather than design : but the absence of stockings from art otherwise normally Locked business girl would fie put down to a bse nt-niindedness or mere notoriety hunting. Probably the hatless and lioseiess craze is merely a passing fad, which has been stimulated by celluloid representations from ilie Hollywood studios, rather than a real desire for economy or a quest lor better health. Bald Men and Hairy-legged Women.

From the hygienic point of view medical opinion is somewhat in conflict, and an attempt to summarise tho varying opinions discloses the strange fact that going hatless tends t<- a thinning-out of the hair at a premature ago with our yoking men, while abandoning hose has a marked tendency to the growth of hair on the legs of our young ladies. So in the course of time we may expect to develop distinct New Zealand types of bald young men and hairy-legged young women. There are, of course, types of young manhood with a natural growth of hair which it seems a pity to cover with felt or stiaw. but for these fortunate ones there are a vast majority whose appearance would appeal much mere if their features were eroVned with appropriate head covering suited to their features, and they would no longer give the impression of being partially dressed owing to financial stringency or a misguided hatred of hatters which lias probably no substantial grounds to justify such a sacrifice. BacK to Darwin. The stockingless craze appears even more meaningless, as the impression of clothing deficiency is even more marked with the absence of hosiery in a city-clad girl than the missing hat iu a man about town. Is it suggested that the beach-girl appeal can be transferred to the city pavements and Iranis with a one-piece frock replacing the three-piece bathing costume? When silk stockings of good quality are within reach of all. and tho bare skin has so little of beauty to warrant undue display, it is not surprising that our distinguished lady

visitor was at a loss to account for the strango lapse ol taste and judgment on the part of our girls, who otherwise appealed to her critical eye- as very fine types of healthy young womanhood. The suggestion that psychologically the semi-nudist fad is just one more manifestation of the inferiority complex, and a type of exhibitionism as u revolt against repressions and inhibitions, goes too deep for any but psycho-analysts, and probably tho disappearance of the depression will cause a similar fading of fads and era a ty notions as normality returns.

In any ease a common display of dusty, mud-spattered, red sunburnt or pealing legs with a healthy hirsute growth has nothing aesthetic about it and is merely an unpleasant reminder that Darwin may have been right in his theory of tho descent of man, and that the aeons of time Nature has putin evolving an almost hairless leg on the female of the specie-s is to be regarded as so much wasted time.