Sneers for Snoods

Since Irene Castle bobbed her hair in 1913, since U. S. women invaded barber shops and the permanent wave went into mass production, hairdressing has been a tea-pot-stormy industry.

While husbands jeered, hairdressers purred and hat-designers hovered, most U. S. women whorled when whorls were definitely the thing, went closely bobbed with shaven necks when that was decreed, had their ears hidden one year, naked the next.

The last major fashion edict--that hair simply must be upswept--overcame the temporary setback to the hairdressing art caused by the wide acceptance of the medieval pageboy bob, a hair fashion that needed slight and infrequent attention.*

But last season Paris turned to the Renaissance, resurrected for hats the snood worn by Beatrice d'Este. It caught on, and the Paris openings last month brought worse news to hairdressers. The simple snood--which caught back hair in a mesh bag--had been developed into what was called "back interest." The 1939 snood, balancing front-tipped hats, almost completely encased the hair in fabric--jersey, velvet, grosgrain--nullifying the hairdressers' art.

U. S. hairdressers were hopping mad. When Mab Wilson, beauty editor of Vogue, addressed the New York State Hairdressers and Cosmetologists' convention last week on coiffure trends, her audience was fit to be tied. Miss Wilson actually appeared in a vivid green pillbox hat, her hair lushly snooded.

Honorary President Emile Martin glared at Miss Wilson's snood and leaped to his feet after her talk to present a resolution damning snoods. Even the fluttered Miss Wilson voted aye. But some observers felt the hairdressers had reaped the whorlwind they had sown.

*In 1938, hairdressers hissed Greta Garbo for maintaining the overlong bob that is her trademark.

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