Women – Wise and Otherwise

Mrs. Randolph Guggenheimer, Editor

Emil, of Charles and Emil at 47 East Forty-sixth street is a find among hairdressers. He has Convictions. Number one among these is that people are more “hair conscious” now than they’ve ever been. A mussy, fussy head stands out in a crowd like a sore thumb. And men who never noticed, are now pretty snappy if they’re with an inadvertently wind-blown bob. He says he started the brushed-up-in-the-back movement two years ago and he still likes hair dressed high best of all. He prognosticates some height in the front, not a pompadour exactly, but some building up. He has a quick-set lotion that keeps you under the drier for what seems only a jiffy and his hair tonics and lotions are simply swell.

If you get the London blues around four-thirty and you crave a cup of tea, plan your afternoon’s shopping at Dunhill’s new shop in the British Empire building. They’ll give you tea and as much English atmosphere as you like. It’s nice to have it without having to claw at a fog to get it. Their superbly tailored clothes, distinctly English, are as good an excuse as any, in fact they are the best excuse in the world for dropping in.

Elizabeth Hawes has more energy than any ten women I know. Her latest fling is designing bags which, being by Miss Hawes, aren’t like anybody else’s bags you ever saw. They are generally made of antelope suede, black or brown, and they have exceedingly graphic names. “Angel-fish” is shaped like one, tailless, it’s true, but with definite wingfins. “Moonbeam” is completely round with a semi-circular silvery frame. “Hoops” is a square bag with a round amber frame. It’s the nicest thing to carry. You grab it any place. And it’s made so eminently practical. This is at Jay-Thorpe. “Bolster” is a fat and friendly and very smart purse with a metal frame. The name tells all!

When I. Miller brings out a new idea, a murmur of excitement goes around. It’s like bringing out one of the season’s important debutantes, only I. Miller debutantes are always successes. This time it’s “Measu-right,” a new twin-fitting device which measures both your feet at once from h#el to toe and makes incorrect fit in shoes an impossibility. The next step is the X-ray, a machine to photograph the position of your feet inside of the shoes to make certain that there is no cramping. It’s all very, very scientific and plus all this attention you are fitted by a licensed shoe specialist who has spent a year of rigid study under a podiatrist. It’s a revolutionary change in fitting and service, a service which achieves the perfect union of foot comfort and shoe beauty.

Ketto is that divine Russian Princess whose picture you’ve been admiring (swathed in Russian sables) ever since she came to America. She’s a woman of great chic and is capitalizing it and placing it at your service in her shop at 121 East Fifty-seventh street. The clothes are the essence of simplicity and good taste. Her suits are dreams. I went right off the deep end about one in maple-colored velvet, stitched with a hat to match. Her evening dresses are in the grand manner, with something of the aristocratic elegance of the old regime about them. But as new as can be, of course. She has fabulously luxurious lingerie. Some charming hats. Perfume. The room itself is restful and attractive, and on the walls are sketches of prominent clients in the dresses Ketto has made for them.