MALE FASHIONS

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIV, 11 April 1927, Page 8

MALE FASHIONS

THE BERET. (London Daily Telegraph.) A new mode of covering and adorning the male Lead is a matter of some moment. For years the varieties olj masculine headgear have been becoming fewer ahd fewer’, uifitil to-day a man may make one hat serve all but the most solemn occasions. Fine distinctions are the marks of a high state of civilisation. Just as the civilised man. has many names by which he is known to different persons standing in varying relations of intimacy, so he had until yesterday many hats. The philosopher mtfy discern in the dropping of formally-graded modes of address a declension from the highest peak of civilisation. The fashion which permits a Prime Minister or an Ambassador to wear a hat of the same style as the office boy, and to wear it to the exclusion of a’l other headgear, may support the same diagnosis. It certainly proclaims a poverty of imagination. Nor is it clear why eminently convenient hats have passed out of favor. The old 1 ‘Gibus” was the very thing for opera and thbatre, and no- 1 body seems to know why smart men began pushing silk hats under their stalls. The “gent’s straw boater” likewise had its points. For one thing its appearance in the London streets ,

was an early sign of summer which we all delighted to observe. In many i suburban household the news was imparted : “I saw a man in a straw hat to-day.’’ It r;as good news, for it brought the breath of holidays with it. But the straw hat is seen now only on the heads of visiting Americans. The universal wear is that hat of felt which it is the romantic custom of the police to eall a “Trilby.” But as hats pass without reason so also they come. Or at least one has come. Mr Borotra appeared at the Lawn Tennis Championship meeting at Wimbledon in one of those close-fitting caps which are the common wear of the men of the Besque countryside. Lawntennis players who, if they could not match Mr Borotra’s play, were determined! to match his cap clamored for berets. The looms of the Pyrenees have worked overtime ever since in turning out these caps, which in thenauthentic form are woven from the middle. The final note of distinction was attained when Reuter, that übi quitous observer of' things great and small, telegraphed that the Prince o! Wales and General Trotter had appear ed on the golf course at Bairritz “wearing berets adjusted, at exactly the right angle.” The dashing motorcyclists who moat affect thq beret just now will note that the cap in its true state is of one color only, and it has no tt«ekss and uncomfortable tassel appended. The parti-colored caps which abound .are the result of cutting berets in halves .and 1 joining like to unlike. So are fashions made. Only rarely can ths jsroeess be observed and