DRESS REFORM

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 290, 6 December 1929, Page 12

DRESS REFORM

WASHABLE SUITS FOR MEN “It would be a valuable reform if men took to washable outer garments,’’ said Professor Leonard Hill in his presidential address to the Conference of the Sanitary Inspectors’ Association at L iwestoft. “Laundrymen might well set out to try and provoke this fashion. ‘‘ What care a surgeon takes in treating a wound with clean dressings, and what dirty clothes are worn by most people! “Woman has reduced her clothing —all a weight of two or three pounds, while man continues to overclothe himself with three or four times that weight.’’ West End tailors heard of Professor Hill’s suggestion with ill-conceal-ed horror (says the Evening Standard). “Perfectly absurd.” said the head of a firm which is popular with Oxford and Cambridge undergraduates. “Imagine what a suit would look like after it had been washed. The trousers would be dreadful—sloppy and baggy at the knees. Most men, in any case, have their suits cleaned regularly.” Another tailor said:— “Freak fashions are not popular with men.” Mr Stanley Johnson (London), speaking at the annual meeting of merchant tailors at Exeter, denounced dress “quacks,” who suggested that shorts and < •n-uecked shirts would do for all occasions. Dr. Alfred Jordan, of the New Health Society, said Mr Johnston, had suggested that employers should adopt hygienic clothes themselves. “This good man must be talking with his tongue in his cheek,” raid Dr. Jordan, “otherwise he would try to induce Mr Gordon Selfridge and Sir Sidney Skinner to promenade up and down their stores wearing shorts. “Dr. Inge, that apostle of humour, says that trousers might be abolished in favour of shorts, but the Dean sticks to gloomy breeches and covers his calves with gaiters. ‘‘The Dean virtually says, ‘Do as I say and not as I do.’ ”

“That is for a very good reason, for it is beyond the imagination to picture the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral making a profound impression in l*.re legs.”