Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Thursday 26 November 1953, page 9
Rosalie Warne asks leading men:
'What most appeals to you
in a woman?'
Leading Melbourne
photographer
ATHOL SHMITH replies
A MAN who has photographed many of
the the world's most beautiful women, and who looks at local glamor daily, bluntly proclaims that "beauty doesn't matter two
hoots!"
And furthermore, photogenic types don't
exist. An elephant can be photogenic. Sub-
jects are harder or easier, that's all.
Athol Shmith has two "things" about women. One is their hair; the
other is shoes.
To attract him at all, a woman must be well groomed. And to be well
groomed she must have
well dressed hair and good shoes.
He likes a woman's hair to be feminine and "clas-
sical." The color doesn't matter. It should have no obvious curls or waves. It should be soft, flat on top, and falling with a nice, natural line.
"This fashion of wives
having hair shorter than
their husbands', it can't
last," he says impatiently. "It's part of the trend away from what's feminine — and to my mind the ap-pealing woman is essen-tially feminine.
"Not that femininity
depends entirely on hair and clothes. A woman can wear trousers and still be feminine — she either has it or she hasn't."
Mr. Shmith likes so-phistication, but only if it comes easily; women shouldn't strive after it — a charming woman can be completely unsophisti-cated, he says.
Anything "pseudo" should be avoided. There's nothing worse than the sort of woman who talks about a subject like cham-ber music just to impress,
for instance.
If a woman can carry a career and remain fem-inine, all right. But a charming woman need not excel at anything in par-ticular. If she can run a home with grace and plea-sure, relax and know how to enjoy her children, she has achieved a lot.
"She should, of course, have some interests in common with mine: music, the theatre, gramophone
records, and books—no, not photography, that's business!"
The type that appeals least is the overpowering type, the sort of woman who doesn't let you get a word in edgewise, and has never heard of the art of listening. "How men can live with them, I don't
know!"
The "ear-basher " who is also masculine is even
worse.
The worst deficiency a woman can have is to be unable to assist a man in
a social or business situa-tion. She should be able to help him through it.
She should gallantly en-dure the most boring even-ing to assist her husband's
career.
And she should be tact-ful—able to help in an em-barrassing situation; that's a great attribute.
The most unforgivable thing a woman can do is to dress a man down in public, he considers.
No matter what the pro-vocation, she should keep it till afterwards.