Shooting Your Own Fashions

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21959, 10 May 1941, Page 5

Shooting Your Own Fashions

“Oh, so you’re the lady who shoots her own fashions,'’ said a Parisian couturier to me when I was in the French capital shortly before the war, writes Osa Johnson. I was a little startled at this statement, for it had never occurred to me to view myself as a nlmrod stalking into the forest to slay fashions for my own particular and exclusive use. In fact, the more I pondered the idea, the more convinced I became that the remark called for an explanation on my part. Possibly other Individuals had the same thought. It might even be that- the impression was current that I was a predatory huntress who stalked her hats and costs and even her rugs in the jungle. So I decided Immediately to clarify matters by setting forth the facts. When I was a girl of 17, the bride of 'Martin Johnson, a young adventurer, I got my first taste of the jungle. I had unwittingly launched myself on a career that was to keep me moving for the next 27 years as partner and helpmate of my husband, blazing trails into remote and uncivilised places throughout the world—especially the South Seas, Borneo and Africa. During my first peep into the jungle, I didn’t shoot any fashions, I assure you. In fact, it was almost the other way round, for we were captured by cannibals and only by the greatest good fortune escaped with our lives. I have used this incident as one of the highpoints of my new film, “I Married Adventure," to be released in Australia shortly. But I will say that in later years I did find myself making use of nature’s Sputh Sea colour blends and foliage designs, all of which have proven helpful in the selection of each season’s wardrobe. No one could have been more surprised than I in 1939 when I was named one of the nation’s 10 best dressed women by the Academy of Fashion, representing a national membership of dress designers. I did appreciate the honour, and I was gratified all the more to learn that I nad been selected for applying “jungle attire to practical everyday fashion." I have had to be practical, for every day of my life has been full of work to do, and in the jungle, functional value and usefulness are more important than mere beauty. I now try, as a matter of fact, to inject an African influence into each ensemble I wear, because I love the colours and fabrics that Africa and an active outdoor life suggest and require. When I was conducting the motion picture expedition for "Stanley and mvingstone, ’ I shot a particularly, fine Thompson gazelle for meat for the commissary of the natives, and it seemed such a shame not to make some use of the skin that I conceived the idea of tanning it for a coat. Not only did I make a coat of it, I also made a hat—or rather had them made in Paris. I think this is one of the finest coats I have ever owned. It is lined with champagne silk, and the leather is just as soft and pliable as chamois, but much morq durable. It is a particularly rich colour, a hue that I have named Kenya gold because there is no colour like it in America. It is tailored, yet feminine.

So whenever I have been forced to shoot an animal in self-defence, or where I have slain for the pot, I have tried to put the pelt cr feathers, as the case might be, to some practical use. I am thankful to say that my gun has saved my life many times in Africa, and the fact that it provided me a pretty hat or coat was merely incidental. I shot a leopard one day that was about to spring upon my husband and his father. Both would have been badly clawed and possibly killed. Another time it was necessary to stop a buffalo stampede that would have ended the lives of all of us, by bringing one of the leaders down and thus turning the herd. Although I have shot a number of elephants in selfdefence I have never killed one of the beautiful egrets, gorgeously plumed, which accompany them as the tick birds do the rhino. , to-free them of ticks and act as ..their warning messengers. Whenever we kill a bustard (African wild turkey), we always save the wings for a hat. And whenever we kill a guinea fowl, we say. “The pompom for a turban, the breast for a roast, the legs for soup, and the other feathers for a pillow.” Perhaps this is a survival of my western pioneer- ancestral thrift.

So shooting your fashions in Africa is closely allied with shooting your meals—and I would be the last to deny that both are- necessities!