Straws in the Wind

To the growing list of male garb appropriated by feminine fashion (oxford shirts, cut-down chinos, cuff links), something new has been added. Perched on pretty heads all along the East Coast, the man's straw is this summer's last word. Sales of the soft straws, reported conservative Brooks Brothers, have been "amazing." Said a pert teen-ager at Long Island's Southampton: "This year you're behind the times unless you're wearing a soft straw."

The move toward adopting the man's straw as their own began last year when collegians popularized the gondolier straw hat, a cross between the U.S. male's straw boater (now enjoying a booming revival) and the Venetian gondolier's wide-brimmed hat. But fashion is as fickle on the beaches as in the salons of Paris. College girls spending their spring vacations in Bermuda and Nassau this year discovered the virtues of the man's straw hat, enthusiastically spread the fad through whole campuses--and delighted straw hat manufacturers. "We were tired of the big straw hats of last year," says one girl, "so we simply picked a smaller, lighter hat. It happened to be a man's hat."

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