KEEN RIVALRY FOR HUB OF FASHION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18186, 20 June 1927, Page 5

KEEN RIVALRY FOR HUB OF FASHION.

LONDON IS MECCA OF WELL DRESSED MALE.

LONDON, May 1. Paris embarked, this week, on a campaign to make France what it -was once, and what England is now—the Mecca of the well-dressed male, the headquarters of men’s fashions. A dictatorship of the wardrobe is frankly aimed at. The tailors of the West End of London are not perturbed; in fact, they are smiling. They say that whatever chance the movement might have in the hands of certain Frenchmen (all of whom, incidentally, come to London at present for everything they wear, from hats to boots), it is foredoomed under its present direction. The originators are painters, like Cappiello, and literary men, like de Wafeffe. And who ever heard of an artist or writer, since the invention of trousers for use by European men, who was not more or less an offence to the eye sartorially? Some of the exhibits at the First Show of Fashions for Men in Paris, arp reported to be skin-tight knee breeches, waisted coats like smocks reaching to the knee, and straw hats with broad ribbons of a golden hue! Influence of Films. There is one part of the world, though, that the once completely selfassured tailors, hatters and bootmakers of London are really beginning to fear. They say that if ever their empire passes it will be to New York. Many factors have combined to create this peril. In the §rst place there are the films, whose exotically clothed heroes have made the reticent London styles, look drab by contrast. Brummell, whose one aim was to look inconspicuous, would have done no good for himself at Hollywood. Then there is the silent propaganda engaged in unconsciously by the millions of Americans who have poured through Britain since the war, and who are coming to London in ever-increas-ing numbers. Most of them are neither the splendid figures of the Fifth Avenue type of film nor the outrages depicted by the world’s comic artists. They are simply men in conspicuously good, if to British eyes, somewhat odd clothes, and the fact that they are liable to walk down Bond Street in plus fours, and dine in the humbler Soho restaurants in full evening dress, only makes the advertisement which they give their national costume more effective. The London tailors admit that in lounge or business suits, and in dress clothes, their American rivals have gone a long way. The Americans, with the absolute confidence which indicates a high morale, and which in trade is said to be half the battle, claim that in these lines they are already far ahead of London. Clothes Critics. But in other directions they admit implication that England knows more than they do. One of the few well-paid jobs which is open in New York to a young Englishman without brains or a profession, provided he can show the necessary references (that he is an old Etonian, for instance), is that of clothes critic. Many Americans appear uncertain about the correct combinations to wear with a top hat and with sporting clothes—the uniform of golf always excepted. The haberdashers of London, by the way, blame America for the slump in the wearing of club colours. A member of the Yorkshire XI (say) was always liable to be greeted from the U.SA., as a member of the Chicago Rooters, or something like that, and, as a result, most British sportsmen in active work now wear ties as insignificant as anybody else.