CLOTHES AND THE MAR.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIC, Issue 13459, 4 December 1907, Page 7

CLOTHES AND THE MAR.

An exhibition of dressmakers' work in London was' opened . by. Mi; Louis N. Parker, who, in an entertaining speech, said ha knew nothing about clot-bui except that he was never comfortable in. any coat until it was not fit to ba e-eeri, and always hated boots which were riot worn out. Still, he was broad-minded* enough to recognise that the question of dress was one of the> two most important questions that had agiated mankind since mankind emerged from protoplasm. The other question was of what we should eat. We were, told we dressed too much; so some went without shoes and stockings,, and some without hats, and some—perhaps unwillingly—without hair. In Germany, some societies seriously advocated doing without clothes at all, and from an economic basis this had great advantage-s. Still, he could not help wondering where one was to put one's watch. But on one point he thought they were unanimous that the clothes a man wore were an eyesore, from his horrible hat to his ghastly boots. Man had sunk to hi? degraded position eartorially because no woman ever looked ■ twice at his costume. Woman's life would be twice as full if she disciissed her .husband's drctis-as well as her own., If a husband paid for his wife's bonnet, why r.hbuld not the wife trim the hus band's hat? Let them abolish the stovepipe, bowler, the frockcoat, the stiff shirt front, the high collar, and let men have something flowing, which displayed or concealed their' curves, accordingly to the individual needs, and, above all, with colour in. it. In that exhibition woman had the lion's share; but, then, the suggestion that it was mot- for her dress, but man's, that required reform had not been made. He hoped in the. future to see another exhibition, in. which that -great thought would, find if, 3 full fruition.