BUYING A HAT.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16800, 19 May 1926, Page 5

BUYING A HAT.

MILLINERY DRAMA OR FARCE? ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES. It was a Frenchman who called a hat the dramatic moment nt' a costume. He meant it as a compliment, hut in hats, as in plays, there is good and had drama. Good millinery drama comprises not only an attractive hat and a woman whose appearance and personalily it suits, hut also mutual understanding between the two. The combination seems to he comparatively rare. Every woman wishes to achieve it, but many fail, chiefly through disregarding the elementary principles of hat selection. The Time to Buy. She buys at Ihe wrong time. The average woman chooses a day when she is looking her best to try on hats. It is safer to buy when she is looking her worst, for a lint that suits her then will suit her any lime. Placarded Truisms in a Paris Shop. Women are 100 apt io consider the front view only of a iiul. A Paris shop displays prominently two signs in English which are Hie essence of wise selection: ‘'Know thyself" and “see yourself as others see yon." To do that one must view a hat from every possible angle. Sitting, standing, walking, lurning, near the mirror and far off, studying front, hack, and side effects—alt this goes to the purchase of a hat. To know oneself is a task that has hafrind philosophers, yet Hie successful hat buyer relentlessly tackles it. Size, colouring, age, lempernmenl, vocation, income are carefully considered; defer Is are courageously acknowledged. The short, stout woman who knows Hat she is short and stout stands a heller chance of getting a becoming hat Ilian I lie one who does not know it. She will abjure big Hopping bals. just as Hie very tall, thin woman, will renounce lillle bats. Yet even then all is not plain sailing.

If Hie si ior I, sloul woman possesses a full-moon face or llie tall woman a lliin. delieal.e face, Hie problem becomes complicated, for the small hat which her figure demands emphasises the rouudness of the short woman's fal face, and a very large haL overwhelms the tall woman’s thin face. Compromise and modification arc reipiired. and it takes discrimination to Ilud the desired middle course. A Vexation to Milliner—and Wearer. Pronounced facial features are a vexation to the milliner, for they very delinilely circumscribe her art. A long, drooping nose is made longer by a hat that shuns backward, Hie up-turned nose bates feathers, a pointed chin is exaggerated by the cloche hat. Having purchased a hat, the tiling is to wear it properly. Here women sin by going lo extremes. They push too far hack a hat. that is to he worn off the lace, and pull too far forward one that is to he worn over the face. And that, il should he thoroughly well understood, turns millinery drama into millinery farce. .