SUICIDE HATS

Hawera Star, Volume L, 29 July 1930, Page 9

SUICIDE HATS

NEW PARTS FASHION IMPERILS LIVES. .

The suicide hat —a wide-brimmed monstrosity which screens the eye® and imperils the life of it® wearer in traffic—is the latest insane fashion • lyhich Paris designers are. attempting to f< ist on the women.

It is impassible for the wearer of such a hat to see either to- the right or the left without effort.. She can see nothing that is not directly ill’ front of her.

Another form of the suicide hat is made with, blinkers like a spaniel’® cans, and this type is all the more dangerous because motorists do not realise, that the wearer cannot see. A “Sunday Express” representative spent an hour watching women crossing the road to- Hyde Park Corner, one •cf'the most dangerous spots in London.

AY omen in skul'l caps crossed safely and without incident, and: then there stood on the edge, of the pavement- a woman in a wide black felt-and-straw hat of the new type. The hat looked charming, and! its wearer had looked happy. At the kerb her expression changed to one of anxiety. She. hovered fo r a moment and dashed across to. an island. A taxicab on her right that she bad not seen pulled up with a scream of brakes, and its driver bad ‘‘a few words” to jay.

The woman in the hat wavs far too agitated to hear them. She had to reach another island before making; a final plunge for the opposite pavement. During the last lap a box-tricycle missad her bv an inch. She arrived, safe but thoroughly unnerved, with the. hat on one side.