MR SHAW ON FASHION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16307, 23 December 1920, Page 9

MR SHAW ON FASHION.

Mr Bernard Shai? has appeared in a role—as. a critic ana historian ot feminine fashions since 1860. Writing in the current issue of “ Time and Tido ” —the new women’s paper—ho describes how ho first became conscious of women as immense mounds of flounced dress fabric, with waists of the top of the mounds, arid above the waists figures more or less like man. “■ There was vigorous hygienic propaganda against tight lacing,” he says, “with fearful pictures of the displacement of the internal organs. These pictures produced no effect whatever; but warnings that small waists meant red noses perhaps did produce some. One is tempted to say,” adds Mr Shaw, “ that women, have a special want of sense of the value of their feet; for how many of the women who wear high-heeled fashionable- shoes to-day have a reasonably well-shaped human foot inside them?” Cta the subject of smoking, Mr Shaw remarks: “ilen wero always a little ashamed of it, and were actually heading for its renunciation, when women gave it an enormous impulse, and made it quite shameless.” ■