WHAT TO WEAR?

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 23, 27 January 1934, Page 6

WHAT TO WEAR?

SHORTS OR SKIRTS

According to an exchange thero is .quite a mild war going on in Australia over the vexed question of what to wear when playing games in summer time. No one can wonder that the sports folk feel that they need as much coolness as . possible when it is realised that the temperature at present is from 100 to _ 114 degrees of heat in different parts.

■ Suburban councils and other authorities are considering the possibilities of shorts or skirts, and if ,the backless frocks are admissible on the, respectable; precincts of bowling grcensf It hardly seems as if the latter place' would be suitable for a woman playerto appear in backless costume, but it seems that one brave woman ventured to do so at a Melbourne suburb, and was promptly told that it would not do. She thought the official warning was meant for a joke, but soon found that it was meant seriously. An opponent provided her with a jumper with long • sleeves and a high neck, and in that rather stifling rigout she finished the game. The story does not state if she wan or . not. Later she was told that tho menkind did not even wear short-sleeved garments for their game. Therefore it was quite unlikely that they would stand for any. further display of unclothed humanity. Shorts havo been discussed from every angle, but tho idea seems to have seized most of the women tennis players that the short white cotton skirt is the ideal, so far as they are concerned. But there are still those who long to reduce their garments ty the irreducible minimum, and these are criticised from the aesthetic point of view of the "knobbly knees" or bandy or knocked legs. Neither can bo considered as pleasing to the eye,-but, perhaps, feminine desire to please stops short at this point, and the devotees of shorts arc increasing in a • small i degree. 1 It is the same with tho "backlessness»." The fact of having .an ugly , back does not seem to count. . In such a hot climate it may bo that a , draught all round the anatomy may jbe comfortable, but in places where the climate is moderate to cold, there is not the same excuse, and other reasons must be sought. The beaches in Sydney have been well criticised. llt has now been decided that the 1 womenkind Wear much more abbreviated costumes than the men—a question of good or bad taste, and the suitability of the occasion.