THE LADY'S HAT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20331, 14 June 1934, Page 10

THE LADY'S HAT.

New Uses for Former Oddments.

WHERE LITTLE IS MUCH. (Written for the “ Star.”) It isn’t the slump, though possibly it is one of the contributing causes. Time was when women hid themselves from the world under spreading canopies, which, with an opulent display of exotic flora and fauna, did duty as hats. If you are old enough you will remember them—those huge, ostentatious canopies at which the truly modern young folk laugh in satirical unbelief when they see them in the old-time pictures.

Those were the good old days, when it took something more than a couple of silkworms to dress a woman. There were jobs for mills and work for men in those days; there was a profitable field of operations for trappers who snared the birds that paid tribute with their lives to woman’s vanity ; there were jobs for cunning artisans to manufacture the weird assortments of A fruit that were so realistic that, if you were hungry, might distract your attention from the pretty face beneath. There were jobs for half the world just dressing the women. Pops It On.

But now? Well, look at the hats. Any kttle bit of material, of any old shape, worn at any old angle, and there you have a hat. Nothing could emphasise the advance

of woman into man’s domain more than does that little thing on the top of her head that she i calls a hat. Once a B hat had to be lowerled into position r with infinite care, adjusted with taste and precision, examined long and critically to see if it was

on straight. The operation was a rite. Now a woman, leaving the house, snatches from a heap the oddity that happens to come first to hand, pops it on her head, and there vou are. So long as she does not accidentally put it on straight it is all right. Whatever the casual angle at which she happens to put it, it is bound to be in conformity with one or another of the recent multifarious dictates of fashion.

There are hats that are all height, without length or breadth, hats that have no height but fit closely like an old skull cap: little woolly arrangements that will serve either as a hat or a tea cosy—an infinite variety of hats, but all of them small and all of them capable of being worn at whatever angle they strike the head. Traps For Men.

There are some that don’t seem to have any shape in particular. It was one of these that led a mere man into bother.

“ I say,” he said to a lady friend, ” you’ve made a rather bad mistake, haven’t you?” Immediate dismay seized the accused female.

“Oh, dear, what’s the matter?” she inquired, producing as if by magic a mirror from somewhere and submitting herself to critical scrutiny. The mirror reassured her. “ I thought my nose must have been shiny,” she said with an air of great relief. “ No,” persisted the hapless male, rushing to inevitable destruction, “ you’ve put on one of your husband’s old hats by mistake.” If you want to find a fury greater than that of the woman scorned, try that of the woman whose hat you have. misunderstood. The poor man, who had meant merely to be helpful, was left a hopeless wreck on a vanquished field, telling himself obstinately that it did look like one of her husband’s old hats, even if it was her ‘ new adorable squashy felt.” There is the halo hat, the cinema hat, the Breton sailor’s hat, and an infinite variety of similar hats Don't be misled by the halo hat. Remember : The bad are oft amongst the good: All are not monks who wear a hood. The halo hat is meant merely to set off to best advantage “ that type of face ” and is not to be confused with a nimbus. The cinema hat is merely a hat that isn’t. If you can understand a woman hatted and yet without a hat, well, there you have the cinema hat. It may be tha* it is a concession to man, permitting him when at the pictures to have a view of the screen instead of merely the hat of the woman in front of him. Anyhow, it is one of those things—creation is the term—that pretends it is part of the woman’s hair. Square Brims.

And presently we are to have the square-brimmed hat. Having had hats

with every other (sort of brim, and with brims that turned up and brims that turned Jdown, and hats without brims at all. we are to have the hat that is mostly brim and very little hat. Wait for it, and [* when it comes, for ii goodness sake don’t

make the error of remarking to your girl friend that somebody appears to have sat. on her hat and squashed the brim out of shape. Of course, it will not entirely rout the present familiar fragments that do such excellent duty, whether they perch on the left eyebrow or hang on the right ear. It may that this modern vogue has resulted in a saving, for once upon a time a new hat could be acquired only as the result of months of saving—or months of waiting b}-- the grocer man. It was a period of infinite waste, when all sorts of things were condemned as of no use. Once, the dressmakers had to throw away loads of odds and ends of material after the cutting operations were over. But do they now?

They do not. P'or if a piece of material is too small or too odd to put to any other use, why, there you have a hat.