NEW AUTUMN HATS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20006, 25 January 1927, Page 14

NEW AUTUMN HATS.

Strictly speaking. I suppose, we ought to think first, about autumn clothes, and then about autumn hats. But, somehow, there is a something about a new season’s hat that rather runs away with us, if we’re not careful. And I’m not sure if it isn’t really the best thing, when yon see a lovely new model that suits yon, to buy it then and there, and build up the rest of your costume to go with it. If you go prudently away to think the matter over, and order your new coat or suit first, it may not bo there when you get back. Very desirable hats do behave that way, I find, and then you think of them for weeks with an “it-might-have-been” sort of feeling. If I had taken my own advice and bought all the attractive ones I’ve just seen, though, my next purchase would have to be a couple of new wardrobes. After these years of little cut felts, the new velvets can only be called intoxicating. The shape that most milliners are showing them in is high and full in the crown, with a brim moderately wide in front, quite wide and very drooping at the sides, and tiny at the back. And the colours! They’re gorgeous this year. All the burgundy and wine shades, red, emerald green, dark blue, and all the beautiful range of “wallflower’’ colouring, are the favourites. Velvet is not, of course, the only material. It is sometimes combined with felt, sometimes with satin, and I have seen several small between-seasons hats made in satin and taffetas. These are mostly in little turban or beret shapes. A Parisienne loves to have a little black satin hat like this, to help her out in the difficult transition time between summer and autumn. Gold is being used a great deal just now on felt hats, generally in the form of a piping of gold kid and a plain gold buckle. On velvet or satin it appears in gold thread embroidery, or beads. I saw one little turban made entirely of gold kid swathed in close folds, destined for Casino wear abroad, and thought how attractive it would be tor dark winter afternoons or informal restaurant dinners. An idea quite worth copying. In short, if we do what the milliners are telling us, not only larger hats, but “best” hats, will come back—and a good thing, too, says one rather bored with little felt hats for all occasions, and quite ready for something softer and kinder! Talking of taffetas, I have just seen such a charming way of using it that I must describe it to you. Over a plain little black frock —chiffon I think it was, but I couldn’t quite see—a girl was wearing a black taffeta cape lined with shellpink taffeta, and her high-crowned black taffeta hat had a gathered under-brim of shell-pink gros grain ribbon, which made it look rather like a little French b nnet. The whole effect was very quaint and original without being too extraordinary, and I beard many people admiring it.