LADIES. DRESS US, PLEASE.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXXVI, Issue 5516, 24 October 1919, Page 1 (Supplement)

LADIES. DRESS US, PLEASE.

By FRED BARNES, The Famous Light Comedy Star. Ladies, do you ever lo.se yourselves in oldtime romances, when men wore coats of rich brocades and velvets, when their sleeves were beruffled and their hats were plumed, and when knee-breeches had not been ousted by that monstrosity, the trousers? What a gay-loooking dog was man in those days, as he sported his golden snuff box and wafted a square of silk and lace before his nose. Compare that past mode for the male with the sombre apparel of himself to-day. Didn’t I hear you say comparisons are odious? Of course they are. There’s nothing so ugly and colourless as the garb of man in the twentieth century, and you know it. I have never yet heard a lady say that she admired the bowler hat, for instance, or that she felt the least regard for the topper. While everybody knows, that when a woman attempts to buy ties and socks for her husband she chooses those with colour. WE WOULD LOOK GORGEOUS! And rightly. It is woman’s way of protesting against the sombreness of man’s clothing. If she had her way she would not have suits confined to black, navy, brown, and grey. Her Romeo would sally forth to his office in this manner: an olivegreen suit with lemon-coloured shirt and flowing tie of black silk, his head crowned with a large and graceful felt or a panama. There’d be a smoking jacket of velvet for his evening hours at home, and a suit of splendour for festive occasions, whose fabric and colour would bear no comparison to the stiff, regulation evening-dress of today.

Am I right. ladies? Isn’t it true that you admire us men folk' most when we don river attire or tennis kit? Or when we dare to dress in the free and easy style of the cowboy? Doesn’t the young knut who defies man’s mode and indulges in ties and socks that lend colour to the landscape find sympathy in your eyes? And does not eevry woman love her khaki cavalier to wear shapely breeches rather than slacks? As for the Scottie in his kilt, he can always command admiration from womankind.

If I am right, ladies—and I think I am —now’s your chance. WHY NOT DO IT NOW? With reconstruction in the air, men doffing khaki for civvies, and the tailors all grumbling because they’ve not enough of the black and navy, the brown and the grey cloths, why not attempt to reconstruct the male mode? The moment is yours, right now. Very few women can “get up” a man’s collar at home, and so, with the starch shortage and laundry charges, sweep the stiff collar to oblivion. How many will bless you if you manage it! For the soft collar has a soft spot in the heart of nearly every man. Just imagine, too, how man would rejoice if he no longer had to use a trousers press and pull up his leg encasements when sitting down. That crease in the trouser leg is responsible for many a grey hair. And now that well-worn khaki is being discarded, many a man will be grateful if his civilian clothes might bear some comparison to army comfort and cut. Of this I am sure: if you can influence man’s mode towards more comfort and brightness he’ll appreciate your efforts. But how you are going to manage it I dare not attempt to say. I leave the question for your solution and sign myself vours hopefully, FRED BARNES.