FASCISM SHEDS ITS TROUSERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 3 December 1940, Page 6

FASCISM SHEDS ITS TROUSERS

ITALIANS URGED TO WEAR SHORTS To economise textiles, Italian men are now being urged to wear shorts and to go without hats, writes a correspondent of “The Times,” London. A campaign with this object has been launched in the Italian Press, as a feature of the current programme of economic self-sufficiency, directed by the Commission for “Self Sufficiency.” presided over by Mussolini. Italian newspapers declare that shorts are not only hygienic but, in present circumstances, the most patriotic masculine costume. During a forthcoming “self-sufficiency week” to popularise men’s war-time clothes —one of a series of similar “weeks” already organised to educate Italians to use exclusively Italian products and to economise materials—attention will be directed mainly to the national advantages of widespread wearing of shorts. The Federation of Italian Merchants has already instructed its members to concentrate on display -g shorts for sale, and will launch a special advertising campaign, using a large number of street posters. The “Popolo di Roma” says that shorts are not only “virile and hygienic,” but also “an important fundamental contribution to the battle for selfsufficiency,” adding that “the new fashion will liberate men from the useless, bourgeois, cumbersome long trousers and other accessories that complicate men’s clothes and render them annoying.”