Artificial Silk

Southland Times, Issue 22296, 11 April 1934, Page 5

Artificial Silk

STOCKINGS AND HATS. It is half a century ago this year since artificial silk was first produced on a commercial scale, and most women — and men, too, if they have eyes to sec—should celebrate an invention which has certainly made half of the human race more alluring and much easier to look at, says the Melbourne Age. Many scientists and inventors had attempted through the centuries to discover a substitute for silk, but it was a Frenchman .and a pupil of Pasteur’s, Count Hilaire de Chardonnet, who at length succeeded in putting an artificial silk thread in the shops. How the industry has grown is shown by comparing the output in 1891 of 30,0001 b., with the 467,505,0001 b made in 1930. The most striking development has probably been in the stocking department; and one might produce a learned thesis upon the social consequences of this fifty-year-old invention. It was possibly Count Hilaire who thought out about the same time that old conundrum—“ What happened to the girl that wore woollen stockings?” To which the answer, of course, is “Nothing.” Fashions have become more democratic, and artificial silk has helped to this end more than anything else. In fact the maidens of slender means who work for their living have nowadays a greater influence upon the fortunes of fashion creators than have the “ladies of society.” Mr Edward Symonds, president of the British Fashions and Fabrics Bureau, has just admitted as much. “The fate of modern fashions i:< dresses and hats,” he says, “hangs on the verdict of women in general and not on the so-called ‘smart

set’.” He has incidentally provided two authoritative fashion notes. Tailored suits with silk blouses or skirts are to be in greater vogue than for many years past; and the tilt of the hats is to be on the right side.

As to these hats, apparently the only sort that definitely cannot be worn is the old millinery tea-cosy type. For the rest, every woman is at liberty to suit her own face with a large hat, a small hat, a halo hat, a beret or a bonnet; and she may go to sailors, pirates, fishermen or Salvation Army lassies for her models. How democratic fashions have become is indicated by the fact that the women-kind of Britain (the population of which, including men and children, is 40,000,000) last year bought 30,000,000 hats between them. Thirty million in a year of depression! Of course many of these hats consisted of a hole with a few threads about it. But it is an impressive figure, and may account in part for the shabbiness characteristic of so many men’s headgear.