DRESSING TO ORDER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19744, 17 September 1927, Page 14 (Supplement)

DRESSING TO ORDER.

WORKERS AND MASTERS.

CHANGE SINCE THE WAR,

Less than twenty years ago there were business houses in London where it was as much as a gill's place was worth to wear any bright colours, lace, or jewellery. Hair had to be dressed in the plainest way possible, and blouses were worn fastened close round the throat. Since the war most of these old restrictions havo gone by the board, yet even now there are firms where the employees must stiil adhere to certain old-fashioned rules regarding dress. Among the few places in London where one may still see a frock coat are the branches of Messrs. Coutts Bank. ing working hours every clerk, as well as every cashier, wears one of these almost extinct garments. It is also a custom at Coutts' for all the mer to be clean shaven. The merest suggestion of side whiskers is all that is permitted in the way of " face fungus." The reasons for the shaving rules at Coutts' are less alarming than similar restrictions which prevail in Turkey. The director of a provincial bank, arriving at Angora, was at once told by the authorities to shave off his beard. He was proud of his beard, and objected to cutting it off, but was told that it was for his own good. Otherwise he would certainly be arrested as a revolutionary. At a certain felt-hat factory, not a hundred miles from Manchester, there is just one dress rule, which is that no employee may wear a cap. There is a notice in the lodge to this effect, and the rule is strictly enforced. There is no hardship about it, for all the men emploved have the privilege of buying their 'hats from the firm at wholesale rates. A girl apprenticed to a London dressmaker was dismissed because she had her hair shingled, and cropped hair was forbidden in the establishment. She refused to take her dismissal lying down, and sued her employer. To the judge she said that she had had her lr cut off by the orders of her doctor, and with the full consent of her parents, and the Court promptly ordered her employer to reinstate her. .