AN ENCROACHMENT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 86, 1 August 1914, Page 7

AN ENCROACHMENT.

A HATLESS BRIGADE FORMED BY GERMAN WOMEN.

Complaint comes from Germany that me modem woman is more and more imitating men's fashion in clothes. Her latest invasion of masculine privilege is said to be Lhe formation of a jatless brigade. Fraulein is entirely independent in her point of view ; she cuts her hair short or she dresses it elegantly as the fancy pleases her; but she has uncovered her head. Somepeople affect to see in this a declaration of her claim to superior intellect ; others attribute the custom merely to a taste acquired in sport and 'ouud so comfortable that it has been ulopted for all occasions. "They have iaken from us." grumbles the man, "our hard and severe hats; they are rearing our waistcoats, they have put on our fobs ; there is no real difference letween the cut and style of their coats and our own." Indeed, the covert •oat worn by Teutonic womanhood tolay is exactly the same as that donned by men. In material,.in the set of the ;houlders, in the placing of the pockets, and in the-way the women put on the garment, there is essentially no difference at all. Men do not like it. As to neckwear, no distinction is tc be found. Boots and shoes are absolutely masculine, for the woman ol ihe period has ceased to aim at a small and elegant foot. Rather does sinprefer one that is large, flat, and solid. Hence her selection of broad-toed, fiatheeled foot-gear, frequently brogued. •md usually laced with braid similar to that worn by the sex that was wont to he stern. A correspondent of the Hamburger Xachrichten has been reminding the rebellious feminist that her display of tresses cannot by any possibility be taken as a proof of s«perior intellectual development. It points rather to a retrograde movement for, he declares, ere women had acquired the art of wearing hats they were in the habit of carrying them over their arms and using them as receptacles for flowers or for fodder for the pets ■ of. the farmyard. The women of Greece and Rome, he reminds his fair readers, had only ribbons and flowers as head ornaments, ft was the men who had more suo•itantial coverings, which they put on whon travelling abroad. Women of Southern Spain wear no hats, but they dress their hair so exquisitely that those of other nationalities might well take a lesson from them. The Italian peasant rarely puts on a hat'; the Waldensian girls consider that they have broken a law even if they long for a fashionable model. The suggestion is offered that the hatless brigade will set a fashion, and bring the serv-ing-maid and the cook back to their former freedom from the affectation of ■\ hat closely imitating that worn by .their mistress. The writer seems inclined to congratulate the emancipated women on setting a fashion that will tend towards a revival of freedom from convention and appreciation of real beauty.