SPRING AND SUMMER HATS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19382, 17 July 1926, Page 6 (Supplement)

SPRING AND SUMMER HATS.

VOGUE IN STRAWS. . Our London correspondent writes: — Millinery is in wonderful variety, and it possesses many interesting features in consequence. For a long while past, at any rate all through the winter, women and girls have looked nearly all alike, for their smail hats seemed to have been shaped in the same mould. But with sunshine in prospect, it has been realised that the shorn hea'"' needs protection at the back as well as shade over the eyes. Hence many developments in detail have been introduced to allow each woman her own individuality, whether she is shingled or not.

There are. of course, compact shapes, and even they are more liberally planned than formerly, and they have some kind of sun protection in the way of a brim. They are made of pliable Bankok (which is an expensive straw and therefore has less pliable imitations), Manila, Tagel, soft chip, shiny terry faillon, summer felt, gros grain," and corded ribbons and other fabrics. " Zebus" is a variety of Manila, arid other straws are Bengal, Panama, fine hemp, and Ballybuntal, which is finer anc even more pliable than Bankok. They are all suitable for useful wear. Very little trimming is seen on this type, and what there is is kept close to "the shape. We find ribbon velvets in colour gradations very effectively used as trimming and as binding for the brims. One of the new features of up-to-date millinery is the sharp uplift of the brim at the back, its height at times being accentuated by a fan 'trill of velvet or ribbon standing erect above the turn-up of the brim and higher than the

crown. This straight line of the back encourages the droop over the face. Most of the crowns nave a saiucy fold which usually follows a slanting line and makes the simple straw shape very smart.

When we lock at the millinery for dressy wear, this is quite different again. Mostly of crinoline or Bankok, the shapes have immensely wide and drooping brims and much higher crowns. The floppy brims dro9p and rise in becoming lines and curves. They are intended for the beapty who is shaven and shorn as well as for the girl who still has plenty of hair—and there still are many such. These hats have veiy little trimming, but the majority have a deep .brim-binding of velvet or ninon—which still" further accentuates the " wide and floppy shape. The trimming is often of ribbon velvet—just a simple wide band with a smartlytied bow placed high to one side toward the back, if not absolutely across the back. Higher crowns are very noticeable with the garden party brims, and some of these, desirous of looking still more important, are given tam-o'shanter topS of silk lace or of tulle, transparent and fluffy in effect, and in colour just a match of the straw to be surmounted. Delicately-woven silk Nottingham lace and insertion takj all the known dyes, so there is considerable variety of tone. The large flop hat sometimes has a single rose or a dainty posy of mixed flowers placed under the brim to correspond with the floral trimming, which may consist merely of two immensely large flat roses in colour-contrast tucked between the brim and the crown on the right side, set well back. There are, of course, imitation ospreys and aigrettes, but these are not very often used. Ribbons and large flowers are more frequently seen, always pressed close to the shape. There is, of course, much rivalry as to the set of the trimmiftg, and, whereas the osprey and ostrich plume used to be encouraged to droop down the front of the shoulder, it now is attached to the back of the hat brim and floats away on to the neck behind. At a little distance away, the wearer appears to have tied back her hair in the old schoolgirl fashion, and brought one of the fashionable, close-fitting felts of the moment well down on the back of her n6ck.

As hats have always to tone with the dress or the two-piece or the sports costume, it is hardly necessary to remark that the colour range is considerable, and that there is a multiplicity of shades in every known colour. There is one firm, a provider of silk stockings, who claims always to have in stock 148 tones from which the buyer may select, and there is no reason to doubt that the millinery or the material departments of the stores are less well equipped. Indeed, the stockings are dyed to accord with the larger details of the attire. With millinery, as with everything else that claims to be fashionable, bois-de-rose and biskra, in the innumerable pinkish tone-gradations, easily come first, and for the most part, they become the face. There are delicate tones of champagne and bluff that will always be wanted, and there are many pinks, the majority of which seem to be closely related to mauves. One of the most prominent blues belongs to the Delft persuasion, and there are greens from the pea shade to leaf, and the deepest emerald.