"SHINGLED AND SHORN"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19216, 4 January 1926, Page 8

"SHINGLED AND SHORN"

BUSY TIME FOR BARBERS. MANY WOMEN CUSTOMERS. THE FASHION IN AUCKLAND. VOGUE OF THE " SHINGLE." One by one man's havens of refuge are being wrested from him by the fair sex. The latest strongholds to fall is tho barber's saloon. A generation ago a man had only to enter a tobacconist's or a barber's shop to be as safe from feminine pursuit or attack as if he were on a desert island. To-day, when he stretches himself out with a towel tucked beneath his chin, he may find the next chair occupied by his mother-in-law who has just dropped in for a trim, or his neighbour's grand-daughter may jostle his elbow at the counter as she drops a packet of her favourite smokes into her shopping kit. The shingle is responsible for it, of course. Somehow cigarettes never went really well with long, feminine tresses, although the habit was acquired long years before woman's crowning glory went the same way as the bustle and the Dundrearys. Nowadays by far the greater part of the barber's business is provided by tho women. Men in the trade say that the safety razor and shorter hours are responsible for the falling off in business on the masculine side. Tho stern sex can now shave itself without any of the risk of grisly nicks and cuts that were an inseparable part of the process as performed with the old-fashioned razor. So great has been the revolution wrought by the introduction of the shingle, that in one Queen Street establishment a staff of twelve is kept employed in cutting and trimming women's hair, while six men can cope with all business that is offering on the masculine side. The Barbers' Conversation. All thf large hairdressing saloons now have separate departments for women and children, but in the suburbs it is no uncommon thing for the man who has dropped in for a hair-cut to have to wait until the young lady in the next chair has had her "marcel" or her trim. This kind of thing brings to mind many interesting points for reflection, for instance, how is the barber going to adapt himself to these new conditions ? For one thing, he will have to adopt a new conversational line altogether; racing tips and the usual man-talk will not be at all the thing for nice old ladies, or slim young misses whose whole world is as yet bounded, by chocolate boxes and movie heroes. A stout job this for the barbers, one would think, after so many, many years of specialised male gossip. Brit no doubt they will rise to the occasion, with a little assistance from their clients. I The past week or two has witnessed scenes of hectic activity in all the toilet parlours of Auckland. The term "barber's saloon" is, of course, as dead now as the moa. Tho fair sex has fairly swamped the trade; they have come in their doaens and their scores, and a glance into any hairdressing establishment during Christmas week would have revealed them sitting in rows, waiting patiently to be shingled and shorn. , Hundred Lady Customers Daiiy. One man glanced over his books yesterday, and by rapid calculation, found his staff had attended to about one hundred lady. customers each day. Think of it! One hundred grandmothers, •mothers, daughters, sisters, sweethearts and wives, all under the scissors, all watching with tranquility, even joy, the snipping and the cutting, the shearing of the locks that are the cross and crown of womanhood"Did any of them blench or weep when they saw their long tresses on the floor?".asked the interested inquire?. ; "Never a weep!" said tho barber. "They all seemed jolly glad to get rid of them, and one old lady, who came in with her daughter and her grand-daughter, said she only wished she had had the sense to'have her hair off years ago, when the fashion first came in, only her husband had refused to allow her, until their daughters were all done, and insisted on the old lady following suit." Thus does the great movement of women's emancipation cleave its way forward at the point of the shining scissors! The question of future vain regrets was put to the barber. Was there any truth in the rumour that Paris had already abandoned the shingle and gone back to the tyranny of the "crowning glory!" Fashion Come to Stay. "Women will never go back to long hair," he said positively. "That is, not as the one universal fashion. They have found it so much more convenient, so much cooler, that I don't think for a moment they will go back to the old style. And there is no doubt at all that in ninety cases out of a hundred the short cut is not only more becoming, but it makes a woman look years younger. . . Not much chance of the sex abandoning a fashion like that, do you think ?" he chuckled. Auckland had been a long time-making ap r its mind about the shingle, he continued, and was a good three years behind England and America, but the last few months had definitely put shingling on the crest of the wave of popularity. Where : scores of girls and women were having their hair off last summer, there were literally hundreds following the fashion, now.. In fact, the sight of a group of women all wearing long hair nowadays was just as uncommon as a similar group without their tresses would have been a few years ago. Careful Work Demanded. And very particular the Auckland women were about their hair-cut, he added. Nothing slap-dash or haphazard about it for them. The artistes with the scissors had to be very careful to give the right line and to put the marcel wave in the right places. Even the small bits of things rising six or seven knew quite enough to be particular, and the man who thought that women were getting shingled merely because they were too lazy to bother with their hair showed a pathetic ignorance. In practically every case, said the barber, the ladies asked for their shorn tresses or left them to be "made up." They all said they had no intention of ever letting their hair grow again, but just in case weak-minded women on the other side of the world succumbed to a new craze for long hair, well, they would be on the safe side and keep it to pin on. Meantime, however, the hairpin trade shows no signs whatever of revival, while the shingling experts are booking up appointments two weeks ahead.