MYSTICAL GLAMOUR

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21040, 16 February 1940, Page 3

MYSTICAL GLAMOUR

MEN IN UNIFORM Who can analyse the mystical glamour of the uniform and explain its remarkable attraction for our sex? says a writer in the Sydney Morning Herald. From the days when knights went forth in suits of clanking mail to joust with the enemy, and carried with them to battle a yearning maiden’s talisman, men in uniform .lave captured the imagination and he admiration of women. Maybe there’s a link-up somewhere. Human life takes on a special value when threatened with danger, and it is possible that because men nave always garbed themselves in special vestments to flirt with fate, women associate the military uniform with fear of the possible loss of its wearer.

Whatever the reason, and maybe the psychologists know, it is a fact that the man in the street, when decked in the uniform of his unit, immediately and chameleon-like takes on a new and interesting personality. A Certain Social Success It is the kind of showmanship to which every woman is a victim. The plain young man, no matter how previously negative in personal appeal, when he dons his Majesty’s uniform, is a certain social success. Candidly speaking, the ordinary male in mufti is an unromantic sight. His stuffy civic, commonplace clothes were not carefully and deliberately designed by an expert. They “jes’ growed,” or evolved out of even more hideous male fashion. When he is equipped with a uniform, however, which has been designed with skill and imagination, and an eye to its glorious significance, he cannot help but become an unwitting beneficiary. He is no longer “just plain Bill,” but a concrete representative of an abstract glory. It is the picked man who goes into the army, but even the most classic bodies have their weak points, and military uniform hides a multitude of small failings. Yes. uniform makes a difference. Men always profit by the wearing of it, and women will always respond to its magical influence. I wonder if women in uniform possess the same deadly attraction for the male? I don’t think so. Maybe it is because we need no “build-up.” Our clothes have always signified our best selves. We spend our whole lives thinking out new ways of letting our clothes speak for us. But with men, war, and the necessity for dressing for it, is i their one chance of looking their absolute best.