HAT MARKET IN FLORENCE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16749, 2 June 1922, Page 10

HAT MARKET IN FLORENCE.

A unique and attractive sight is the open air hat market at Florence. The market is held in and around ; the Meroato Nuovo, the New Market, j situated in a little square out of one ; cf the busiest streets of that busy | town. In front of the square is a larg-j lifelike bronze boar, an old fountain, introduced by Flans Andersen to fame, and a little to the south is Ponte Vecchio, that old bridge across the Arno upon which stand on either side timetried, green-shuttered houses. On Thursdays flower stalls are introduced among the straw-work when the visitor’s attention is diverted in spring* time by Florentine roses of gorgeous hues, by Madonna lilies, and boughs of fruit blossom, by tea-roses and stocks, violets and narcissi and pots of lemon trees with the fruit glittering under an Italian sky. So another week-day must be chosen when the local industry of straw hats is the centre of attention. Then you j will see every variety of headgear col - | looted cheek by jowl : garden hats and j panamas, hats with straw-fringed edges, j hats with straw-lac© brims, others with | inset straw medallions of contrasting colours; boys’ hats, men's hats, dolls 7 hats, bundles of straw tied up like horses’ tails and dyed every imaginable colour, lengths of unsplit straw set out like cabbages, rolls of plaited straw in purples, browns, blues and greens, or blends of these, brims without crown?, and crowns without brims, and here and there a tiny mirror set intriguing- 1 ly among the waves of straw. rheqpand there you take off your own j headgear, lured into the first 'stage by | trying on. From somewhere the bareheaded saleswoman instantly produces a hand-mirror and with a" sweep of the hand uncovers a further mirror I in the centre of the stall, and then I expresses admiration of your appearance in whatever shape you choose to put on. The price of each is chanted by the seller, first in lire, and then, if you seem unresponsive, the word “franc'' is substituted. Then it is your turn Toil suggest about half the 'price. A pained expression changes the colour of the vendor’s eyes. And so the game proceeds.