“TOPPER" RETURNS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 533, 10 December 1928, Page 14

“TOPPER" RETURNS

ONCE MORE IN FASHION IN LONDON A COMMERCIAL ASSET After a period of almost complete eclipse, following the war. the silk hat has returned to fashion in the City of London, says an English exchange. A little shorter than of yore, but as glossy and sleek-looking as ever, it has once more become the pet headgear of the stockbroker in particular. In Throgmorton Street, in the space of five minutes, between 20 and 30 young, middle-aged and elderly men wearing silk hats were seen. Though their hats were immaculate and glistened in a burst of sunshine, the wearers did not look so “dressy” as the top-hatted stockbrokers of prewar days. Only one man wore a morning coat, which was formerly the necessary accompaniment of the silk hat. A few were in black with dark-striped trousers, but most wore dark grey lounge suits, and one man was dressed in a blue suit with a faint stripe. “There is-no doubt that the -silk hat has returned to the City,” the manager of a well-known firm of City and West-end hatters said. “We are now selling at least three times as many silk hats as we did just after the war. City men are realising that the silk hat is a commercial asset. It creates confidence in customers by giving the wearer a dressy and important appearance. “Although a silk hat tnat cost 12s 6d before the war now costs 355, and one that formerly cost a guinea is now 455, the present article is not up to pre-war standard.”