Teen-Agers Cause More Than Fur Hat Fad; They Put Bonnets on Hatless Women, Too
NEW YORK —(UPI)— The Zoo look has proved to be the new look in millinery.
Heads that usually are hatless suddenly this winter sprouted head-gear which looked as if it came from a fur farm. The furred look ranges from long-haired synthetics at prices of $3, $4 and $5 per hat to a Somali leopard number at $335.
The hatmakers couldn't be happier. They chortie about how a winter hat fad will blossom right into spring, with the usually bareheaded in straws and every other warm weather hat fabric available.
"Wonderful! We're getting hats on their heads," said a spokesman for the Millinery Institute of America, a trade organization. "Once hatted . . . always hatted."
Who started the fad for the real or fake fur hat which belongs to all age groups?
"Teen-agers, the usually hatless," said Daniel Simner. Simner, an executive with Commodore Hats, explained the sweep of the style through the younger set.
"You know how they are," he said. "What one teen-ager likes, all teen-agers like. Look at the beanie, the knee socks. The adult female wants her clothes to be individual, but not the teens. The other day a (store) buyer from Providence, R.I., told me that in walking one block she
spotted 16 girls each in the same hat style."
"The teeners started the fad. It has spread to every age," said Bernard Grossman, secretary of Betmar, hatmakers for more than 25 years.
years. Actually, said the Milliner's stitute, fur hats first showed as a style item among the "name" milliners in their 1959-60 collections.
The price ranges then, as now, ran from that leopard at $335 to mink at $225 and up and to sable $250 and up, depending on quality and color of the animal skins used.
But as the shaggy head spread, and the younger set latched on to it both for looks and warmth, the millinery industry turned to synthetic materials.
Sinner and Grossman are executives of two of the dozens of firms "feasting" on the shaggy head look, which in 1961-62 ranks as a major part of a $400 million annual industry.
From the standpoint of materials used, there seems no limit. In real fur, milliners said mink is the number one seller, followed by sable, lynx, fox, wolf, raccoon, and opossum. Inakes, the shaggier the fabric the better, with some having piles as deep as one and one-half inches.
Shape of the shaggies? Millinera said they started with "wav out"
numbers with as much as 30 inches of material trailing the wearer—this in the synthetics, because in fur they would be too expensive.
But the best sellers have proved the pixie-shaped caps with crown length six to 10 inches.
Mink Ranching Exotic But 'Frustrating'
NEW YORK — (UPI) — Mink ranching rates as both the most "exotic and often most frustrating" type of farming.
So says a rancher who for 20 years has produced the makings of mink coats and other mink items for women's wardrobes.
"Exotic," said Walter Taylor of Somers, Conn., because mink connotes luxury, glamour and status. Often frustrating, he added, for two reasons—fickle feminine taste and the susceptibility of the animal to disease.
TAYLOR IS ONE of the thousands of farmers in the United States turning out a record crop of ranch mink. Taylor explained the mink is a style production. One year women may be thinking in terms of one color of mutation, the next year, another. But there is a trend toward use of the lighter shades.
UPPERCLASSMAN to become Tastemaker for large-sized college
Our man must aspire to class presidencies . . . want to be included in Who's Who In American Colleges. How we help: with the Cricketeer College wardrobe. The knowing plaid sport-coats . . . the suave vested suits . . . the mustard and olive colors. They make you Tastemaker, Best-Dressed Man on the campus. Illustrated here: the very important vest, the very important glen plaid. Trimlines shoulders all your own, narrow trouser Suits, $62.50; Sport Coats, $37.50
Another in our Cricketeer Trimline series directed to The YOUNG MAN WHO WANTS TO MAKE $10,000 A YEAR BEFORE HE'S 30.
CARL'S
Monday, March 19, 1962 University Daily Kansan
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