Brighter Clothes For Men

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 52, 24 November 1937, Page 14

Brighter Clothes For Men

our Sydney Correspondent.)

. While Mess Jacket Favoured

(From

The - question of men's dress reform is a time-honoured annual which can be expected to rear it's multi-coloured head in all kinds of places and knows no close season. Furipusly as the , controversy rages, no general decision as to the lasting desirability of such.uristable fantasies as coats with cape sleeves and bias-cut , peplums seem likely to be reached. " The exaggerated yodel hat and wildly improbable tuxedo is doomed, along with similar ' sartorial bits of norisense, to a short life but a gay one, according to • Mr. George Fuller, who himself is at all times all that a well-dressed young man should be. Mediaeval jerkins and peasant sabots are all very well for ' those with the white Iight of fanaticism blazing in their eyes, but the average man, Mr. Fuller is willing enough to admit, is a sad dog for convention. But here is news. Tails, just as - they gave every indication of Teaching floor-length within the liext six months, are now on the up-grade, and the move at the moment is for shorter and better tails, and freer and better stair ascents by - those who wear them. For, . as Mr, Fuller explains, people are getting tired of walking on their tails every time they go upstairs. ' Miss Deetje Andriesse's artistic eye woiild see the introduction of still more coloUr, plus added inf ormality, • in the beach-wear worn by men. She suggests the fine gay effect -achieved by lots and lots of coloured shirts and the beach. sandals worn by almost every man on

the beaches of the south of France. For night- wear, Miss Andriesse is definitely in favour of midnight blue, which,' she adds, is a so much better black than black itself. However, * for the summer, Miss Andriesse has no doubts about the supremacy of white mess jackets, and like the -majority of women, -can't understand the peculiar mental make-up that makes men swelter rather than break away from tradition. Definitely anti-dress reform, in its higher flights of fa'ncy, is Mrs. Cliff Kitchen, who holds most strong opinions . on . the desirability of utter convention .in men's dress. She maintains that the secret of the wellrdressed man, as well as the secret of.the well-dresed woman, lies. in the-fact that there must be nothing so outstanding from the whole ensemble that it will catch the eye. And —this is a refreshing opinion from a woman whose own dressing is charming —Mrs. Kitchen finds equally as much pleasure in contemplating the appearance of a well-groomed man as she does in that of an exquisitely-gowned woman. Fresh from her trip to Singapore, Mrs. Kitchen is still another booster for the white mess jacket, particularly that as worn by the: Englishman in the East. Miss Valerie Hay, English leading lady of the "Over She Goes" company, offers the following-as her idea of the perfectly suited city man: Navy suit, white silk shirt, and " blue tie, with white polka dots or blocked scarlet figures. The prospect of . a wardrobe of shirts, ranging the colours' of the siuiset sky, fills Mr. George Gee with well-nigh insupportable horror. Both on and off the stage he clings to a variety of chaste pencil stripes in his shirting materials, and, though a comedian, insists in his own life, on definitely "straight" clothes.