Evening star., 1941-10-09

1t she had covered more miles than
Stanley did looking for Livingstone
and expended enough energy to
light a city of the size of Albu-
querque for a week.
1 have seen some amazing sights
in my life, but none that surpassed
a woman's hat department of large
store at rush hour, and the rush
hour apparently starts at 9 in the
morning and ends at In the after
noon.
During my three or four hours Of
sitting in the millinery sections
collected some interesting data on
how women go about making a
purchase. One thing I noticed is
that 1t is against the rules for lady
to have any preconceived notion OF
what kind of hat she wants when
she sits in front of the mirror and
summons salesgirl.
Just show me some hats, she says.
Now a man when he goes to buy q
hat narrows down the field before
he goes into the store. His mind is
made up as to whether he is going
to buy homburg, derby, a cap or
a knockabout felt.
But a woman wants to see every
hat in the place. She wants to see
the ones with feathers, the ones
with plumes, the ones that are worn
over the eyes, the kind that sit on
the back of the head. the type that
has little gardens on top, the velvet
ones, the silk ones. the straw ones,
and the ones that start at s4 and the
ones that end at $45.
She tries them all on, too. This
is not a simple process, this trying
on business. To put a hat on
properly a woman must yank 1t until
it has lost most of its original shape.
Once the hat is on the work Is only
half started. She moves forward
until her nose almost touches the
mirror and starts making faces at
herself.
! This is to determine Just how the
| hat will look on her no matter what
her emotions are. She screws up her
face in fright. as if to get a good
line on how she would look in the
hat if surprised by burglar. She
smiles and gurgles at herself to see
if the hat is becoming to happy
face, and she pouts and snarls to
get line on how the hat would go
with anger and distress. Before she
I finishes a woman does more acting
than Ethel Barrymore does in q
season. No emotion is overlooked.
I saw one gal, in trying on crea-
ton that looked like Saturday night
in bird sanctuary, shiver and shake
as If overcome with cold. The kind
hest guess is that she planned to
wear. the hat to football game and
wanted to know how it would look on
her if she happened to suffer from
exposure in the third quarter Of
game at the Yale bowl.
Between hats they try on, the girls
comb their hair. This takes about
5 minutes comb. They could prob
ably do it a bit quicker If they
weren't forced to protect the hats
/ they still have to try on from the
hands of other prospective purchas-
ers. Just as the grass on the other
side Of the fence is always a little
greener, so are the hats on some
other girls table more pleasing.
So the girls prowl about. snatch
ing hats from one another. This
results in many sharp clashes among
them. Twice ! saw a near fist-fight
over hat that bore a marked re-
semblance to a well-done steak gar
nished with parsley.
1 can't understand why stores
don't have special stands for spec
tators in their hat departments and
charge a small admission fee. It's
as good show as the ZOO, and it's
educational, too. Womens hats are
decorated with every known item
from the animal. vegetable and min.
eral Kingdoms. and a person can
pick up liberal education by study
ing them.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn
that John Kieran or young Quiz-Kid
barrow kept up on bird life by
shopping around millinery shops.
In another installment III tell
you about women buying shoes. It's
tale of pure horror, one you won't
want to read on a dark night when
you're alone in the house.
| distributed by McNausht syndtcats 1nc,
II