A La Hollywood

NZ Beach Fashion Helps Cook Islanders

rE changing winds of female fashion usually blow someone a little good— for several months past Cook Islands natives have been grateful for the windfall created by a prevailing NZ fashion for ladies.

From newsnaper advertisements we earner that “the thing” 'for beach wear to-day, is a “little bit here and there” in pareu-patterned material, finished off with a “grass skirt”—“as worn bv the hula maidens of the South Sea Isles”— and strings of “real South Sea beads”.

The “South Sea beads” referred to are tiny coloured shells known in the Islands as “pu-pu”. and Cook Islanders are working feverishly to supply the demand for these shells while the fashion lasts. In Rarotonga, especially, the natives will sit up all night preparing the shells for export.

Rain brings the “pu-pu” from their hiding places in the rocks and it is in wet weather that thev must be hunted Searching for these tiny shells over the jagged surface of dead coral rocks, espe cially during rain, is an arduous and even dangerous task. When a quantity has been gathered, the shells must next be thoroughly cleaned and each one separ ately pierced and threaded.

The remuneration is small when com pared with the labour involved, but the duskv maidens of the Cook Islands are thankful to the “South Sea belles” of NZ beaches for this onportunity of raising a few shillings. With the money they usually buy a few yards of chean cotton print to make the frocks habitually worn in the Pacific!

It matters little that the NZ fashion is inspired bv recent exotic Hollywood films rather than bv the everyday dress of South Sea Islanders. Local girls wear such charming outfits only during enter tainments, dancing festivals, etc.—W.S.B.

Miss Heather Dougherty, eldest daugh ter of Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Dougherty, of Port Moresby, Papua, was married to Mr. Clement Watson, of Brisbane, Queensland, at Ela Protestant Church, Papua, on July 30.