The Hutt News THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 1930. VAGARIES OF FASHION.

Hutt News, Volume 2, Issue 41, 20 March 1930, Page 7

The Hutt News THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 1930. VAGARIES OF FASHION.

Poor, mere man can only . flounder -when he attempts to follow or account for feminine fashions, its extreme of length or shortness, its size or nothingness of especially in hats, and its never ending variety of colours and shakos. The latter for delicate tints beaiig something almost beyond the.wild-; est .f:\iicy of the disciple .of the -Impressionist school, of painters. We, of an ol iev -o-eneratio'tf, can look back with somewhat mixed feelings at the .day of the long traiiing'skirty -a trail thntj ■~v a; -.vmit to sweep the footpaths .;s\. its \v-ann' strode ; along with a dignity! belonging to the Victorian age, picking up in its course the germs of, disease that everywhere are lurking and alsc the grime and filth of .a not too clean side-walk. But what a .change h.u come over the scene—the legs, once deemed something to be hidden from the vulgar gaze,* are now exposed to ; the knee (and say it: witix hush«-<i breath, sometimes a - little above r the knee) and the long, full skirt has given way to the more or less kilt-like dress of to-day. When we try to realise what a very small quantity of material should now suffice for the ultra-modern skirt with its sudden stop at the knee and its rather less than nothing about the neck and shoulders; we are puzzled to know why the cost, is not proportionately less. Why should.it cost just as much or more for t«he man-sized poekeshandkerchief amount of material usei to-day as against :the double-blanket sized measure of ■material, used some years ago? But waitj dresses are to be worn longer. This, refers to distance below the knee, not in any. sense to a longer period of^iime that each dress will be worn. Is this, we wonder, fashion's method of doing a little to lessen the evil of unemployment, in so far that a greater amount of material per dress will be refluiTed and consequently more worwkers will be called upon to work more 160ni3 in our great factories? Or mayhap it is fashion's attempt to ■boost a falling wool market and compel the buying of- great quantities of wool probably at enhanced, values. We fear" that neither of thes^;! altruistic reasons is acceptable ~as' aJI explanation of t-he longer skirt, bat the real reason (if there can be reason in fashion) is purely a vagary. But not too fast: the stoeking-inaker has come forward with a counterblast to the shorter-skirt slogan. Woman must not think of showing lea's leg—why the maker of stockings-will make it worth her while to show even more leg because in so doing she will exhibit fhe latest, art craze in stocking beautifleation. To the gaze of infatuated or merely fascinated young male creature, slhe of the new art stocking will display botariic-meehanical or zoological wonders most wonderfully worked on the stocking that is to be so attractive ■that the call of the puritan minded for longer skirts will be as a voice crying in the wilderness. Will, the elderly men be so taken with the wonderful, stocking t>hat they will fail entirely to feel the lure of the leg beneath it and ; miss entirely the ...extreme brevity of the skirt. We had almost exclaimed with the preacher "AH is vanity," but ■we feel so sure of the good sense of our New Zealand women t>hat we are confident this latest craze will, die for lack of support—that our women and girls will stTive in matters of dress only for modesty, comfort and good effect, leaving all such mere vulgarity and trickery to the few —very few we believe— of their ill-balanced sisters,