CLOTHES COMPLEX.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12569, 9 February 1934, Page 2

CLOTHES COMPLEX.

CLERGYMAN ON PRUDERY. During the heat wave which inflicted itself on practically the whole of Australia, dress reformers had a great innings. Men who ridiculed the type of clothes worn by Australians were not bold enough to appear in public in sometTmig more rational. "Why is it that Australian men will not take kindly to tropical suits, nobody seems to" know. The women have shown that they can be respectably dressed in clothes that weigh but a few ounces, but men insist on carrying a few pounds of wool, even on the hottest day, and what is more, they go their sweltering way uncomplaining*; The most outspoken critic of modern-day clothes proved to be the Rev. IT. E. T. Hayes, of Mernda, Victoria, and from the pulpit of St. Stephen’s Anglican Church he declared that human society was fettered by a clothes convention which was a survival of ancient, prudish ideas. Mr Hayes must be described as a militant apostle of dress 'reform. When he visits his parishioners he is usually clad in a scarlet or orange shirt with brief khaki shorts, a Boy Scout’s hat, and no socks. He nearly always rides a bicycle.

In his sermon. Mr Hayes dealt with aspects of the problem of moral and physical evil. He said that the old Genesis story of the creation indicated that the ancients, who originated the believed that clothes, work, and child-bear-ing were evils imposed for the original sin of Adam and Eve. The people of to-day had been so influenced by the clothes complex that many of our laws were based on prudish conceptions which were a survival of the old ideas. All the outcry against nudity in civilised man was due to prudish forms of morality. The youth movements in Europe to-day, which embraced scanty costumes and nude colonies, were moves in the right direction. It showed that the world was going back to naturalness which, if properly controlled, was healthy. The reaction against clothing was an indication of the reality of the ancient feeling that nudity was a condition of Paradise.