SHARP SHOOTER
When she was 10, Carola Panerai whiled away lazy Cuban afternoons plinking at lizards in the family garden with her brother's .22 pistol. Her disapproving parents and European finishing schools put an end to her gunplay. But in 1938 she married Leon Mandel, Chicago sportsman and department store executive, and renewed her shooting interests on hunting trips with him. The Annie Oakley urge really got the best of her in 1950 and she entered national skeet competition. Since 1952 she's been all-American woman's skeet-team captain, a mark of supremacy. Her ride-out-the-target style enabled her to shatter 297 out of 300 birds with 28-, 20-and 12-gauge guns at Louisville, Ky. this summer, breaking the women's High-Over-All record. Carola loses two pounds in a day's shooting, making it easy for her to keep the classic tailored look that has won her another title: best-dressed woman in American sports.
At. Fieldale, Marshall Field's shooting grounds outside Chicago, Carola leans into a shot.
Carola's uniform includes cotton turtle-neck pullover ($2.75), kilt skirt of Stuart tartan ($40, custom-made), matching cap, loafars.
With husband Leon, also a top shot, she wears twin of outfit (left). Black Watch tartan skirt is ready-made, $12.
In Chicago town house Mrs. Mandel displays her hundreds of shooting trophies. At home she wears off-one-shoulder jersey blouse, a sharp contrast to her on-the-range tailored attire.
At Lincoln Park, on Lake Michigan, Carola wears her practice clothes: blue jeans, plaid cotton shirt, skeet-shooter's cap, mesh-backed vest with team emblems. Variable choking device on gun controls shot pattern.
FIVE PHOTOS