KNOCK-BACKS FOR CONVENTION

Northern Advocate, 7 January 1938, Page 2

KNOCK-BACKS FOR CONVENTION

— *dt>Christmas has brought with it the Usual gay colour scheme in female and male attire. You do not need to be told it is holiday time. You just need to keep your eyes open. Every year makes summer wearj gaudier and gaudier—also shorter and shorter. We can all remember about three years ago when a girl was seen slinking down to the bathing pool in shorts. Grandma was shocked, mother produced tears, the boys beamed, the other girls got jealous. It doesn’t give us so much concern now. We are more amused at a girl who walks about in conventional skirt and blouse. / Beach Laws Forgotten. Times certainly have changed, and are changing. Last year on some southern beaches menfolk had to wear “over the shoulders" bathing costumes. It was rather a hardship on fellows used to more broad-minded brevities. The beach-law forbidding men to bathe only in trunks may have been amended this season. It certainly is forgotten in Whangarei and other Northern centres.

Do you remember the girl who lit a cigarette in a tram-car about 10 years ago? I think we all do. Everyone was full of the scandal tor weeks. Ministers, social welfare I workers and others shouted themselves hoarse and at times became quite frenzied. Times certainly have changed. More Revelations. ■We have witnessed revelations not only in social and moral outlook but in dress during the past two decades. More revelations arc evidenced each year. Our beaches show them up properly. Many older people do not like the way things are with the present generation. They don't like backless costumes. slacks, shorts, swimmingtrunks and very-near nakedness. It is a pity they are like that. Greece made itself famous in the realm of beautiful literature, art, sculpture and music because of its idolising of the . human body. Yet a great bulk of people today think the body is something not to be gazed upon but to be clothed and hidden. Who Wants the Old Days? We should learn to admire the human body as much as we admire a good horse. Take a look at any of our beaches today, or even at the streets of Whangarei. Who wants again the old days of long skirts and frills and miles and miles of lace after seeing the extreme brevity of the modern lasses’ apparel? And the men-folk too are not ashamed to produce bandy legs beneath khaki shorts. Certainly something has happened to the old world of convention.