NO BOWLER HATS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20508, 9 January 1935, Page 4

NO BOWLER HATS.

Comedy of the Royal Tour. WHY FASHION CHANGED. (“Star” Special Reporter.) WAIHO GORGE, This Day. When the Duke of Gloucester arrived in New Zealand it was realised that here was a special occasion when everything ought to be done according to Iloyle, and so men who had worn soft hats all their lives blossomed suddenly into the novel bowlers, feeling tremendously self-conscious, but altogether correct. Especially did that apply to members of the Royal touring party. But the Duke is not an addict of the bowler hat, nor are the members of his staff, and gradually the official section of the New Zealand party began to return to the more informal and more comfortable headgear. Detectives Hold Out Longest. The detectives held out the longest. To -a detective an order is an order, and bowler hats for detectives had been indicated. While the others fell singly and in twos and three from grace, the detectives solemnly held on to the unaccustomed badge of complete respectabilit) r . As a result, a position was reached where it was quite easy to pick out the detectives among the crowd. You simply looked for the bowler hats, and there they were right beneath them. Apparently it eventually occurred to somebody that the detectives had become the most conspicuous figures in the whole assemblage. That was a thing that the detectives did not like, for the detective is by nature a retiring and somewhat shy individual, and thus to attract public attention was a thing that ' went much against the grain. So eventually the detectives, too, capitulated, and now there is scarcely a bowler hat to be seen. Certainly Mr H. H. Sterling, chairman of the Railways Board, is wearing one, but then he usually does. In the bags of the rest of the members of the party there repose the bowler hats.