COLLARS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19815, 5 December 1919, Page 6

COLLARS.

FIENDISH PLOT UNVEILED. I am told that there is a movement afoot for the reform of men’s dress (says Frederick Grundy in tlr»> " Sunday Times ”I. That and the fact that, m order to save tho inordinate charges of the laundries, the abolition of collars is suggested, is all that I have heard of it. It is enough. I will stand up for collais so long as starch mil make collars stand up for me. Nay, more. Rather than have no col Ers, I will champion ©very collar—the flutft ones that lie down, and tiiiß. sloth ones that, with the help of safety-pins, nearly stand up, and look like’ baudages; paper ones, if they still ho made, and even the celluloid, and that strainm pice© of harness rather than haberdashery, made of something that has all the worst points oi patent leather, liiioloym and oilcloth, generally displaying vertical* stripes of blue or red and almost white. When such an attack as the present is being made, tho only collar for which 1 have nothing to say is vesterday’s. ' ' But, after all, it is really quite a tribute to man, as a dressing animal, that when a reform in his dress b suggested the would-be reformers have to start olf • the abolition of a. part of it. I hat, in itself shows that there la not very much that needs reform. WHY KEEP THE SHIRT. And of all things that a. man wears, why abolish tho collar? Do those reformers think to influence us by the, praise which a distinguished Frenchman recently bestowed upon the “ patriotism of some French ladies who left olf their stockings? Of mir.se, 1 don't know, but whatever those ladies woro anxious to display, I do not believe it was their patriotism. I do not think w-c can he bluffed out of our collars on that ground. Leaving tho collar on one Hide for a moment, just think what goe s with it, and, in another sense, uould go with it. In the first place,, the necktie. And with no collar or tie," why keep the shirt? From a strictly utilitarian point of view, I suppose our underclothes, if we aro to retain them, would lie made to servo whatever strictly utilitarian purpom tho shirt serves. Thus, with tho abolition of tho collar wo speedily and almost inevitably arrive at a oollarless. tieless, shirtless man, and the whole dastardly plot is at once revealed, bheer Bolshevism! THE COLLAR AS EMBLEM. Tho collar, as every thinking main knows, in much more than a mere article of clothing. That is why I havo pisb laid such stress on the word utilitarian. I will even admit that, strictly speaking, tho collar is hardly clothing at all. But, as I say, it is much more. The collar is an emblem. To modern man tho collar is what Ins shield, his lance, his sword and his armorial bearings were to tho medieval kmglit. Think of a modern kuight. think of a K.B.E. without a collar I M'c all know the story of the Prime Minister who said ho liked the Garter, or some such Order, " because there's no damned nonsense of merit about it.” No one can say that truly about tho ' ordinary collar, and yet it is, I should think, tho only self-conferred decoration or honour we have. We may, _ with very great accuracy, bo divided into men who wear collarsi and men who do not, with a transitional class who wear them on Sundays and holidays. The man who wears no collar wears a scarf, with equal decency. If he rises in station, ho assumes a collar, and if lie ho not justified! ini doing so, woo will betide him among his scarf-wearing peers. It is just tho same with tho occasional collar-wearer. FOUNDATION OF RESPECTABILITY. And, then, what more tragic fall in like than from a collar to no collar 1 Abolish the Garter, and all its proud wearers would remain just as worthy people as they now aro. But strip them of their ordinary collars, with tho accessories of tie and shirt, and the accessories of tho Garter, tho Star Riband, would have to go, and in, twelve months or less their moral deterioratioh would be horribly obvious. It may or may not bo lamentable—l cannot help that—but it is a fact that, take it big _ and large, tho Briton’s sheet-anchor m life is his respectability. The foundation of that respectability is his collar, and in collar I include scarf, for if they abolish tho one they must obviously abolish tho other. And whan tho majority of Britons have lost their collars and their respectability, the end will bo nigh. The Briton without collar or scarf will be far worse than the sans culottes of tho French Revolution. And that’s where tho wily Bolshevik comes in. Ho knows what will happen when the Briton forgoes his collar, his tie, and his shirt. WHAT IS THERE LEFT? Haying laid bare, I trust in time, this ingenious and hideous plot against our Constitution, it hardly seems worth while to examine tho camouflage of reform under which it has been forwarded. These people, qua reformers, might have more reasonably attacked our hats or our boots. But tho hatless brigade and the wearers of sandals m tins country seem for tho most part to bo a mild and harmless pack of nuteaters and lentil digesters. And if that bo the effect of no hats and sandals, it would be quite useless to tho bloody-minded Bolshevik. Tneu what is there left? I*ll6 waistcoats of the Nut may bo a littl© extravagant, but how cheering 1 A certain amount of material might be saved in our “tails,” but they frequently afford a kindly veil for where we do not wish “to shine before men.” Wo might knock off a few buttons, too— I have seen six on a cuff. Passing fads may sometimes cause the employment unnecessarily of « little material, as tho alway&-turned-up trouser-end. Tins fashion crept up some time ago. and some men wore their coat and jacket sleeves turned up, as if they wer*- meditating a walk on their hands in the mud But, alter all, these are trifles, and wc must never forget that the Dandy has ever been a good fighting man. “ BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE.” That reininns mo. If economy really lie the aim of the reformers, they aro “barking up the wrong tree.* A famous American magnate'one© asked for three of his ablest men, one after tho other, to put on a certain job. As each man was mentioned, he was told that ho was hors do combat. Said tho magnate pensively. “Well, I suppose that, tor a teetotaller, ,f suffer more from drink than any man in Now York/’ I hope ho was maligning his staff. Whether or not, the story’ illustrates rny point. Uc suffered' from the drinks of others. And, at any rat-3, according to the generally accepted notion, if man suffers from extravagance m dress—-it is woman's. I don’t, say so at all. but I certainly hear it. But it is not,economy these collaraholitionists are after. It is something much worse even than a mean plot to I rob tho British humorist of one of his low stock jokes—that of tho lost col-lar-stud. Red revolution is their aim. and 1 would give every one or them tho only collar that disgraces a man one mad© of hemp.