Hats Off to Them
There’s so much happening around the Bay at the moment, so in the lead up to Art Deco Weekend I thought a little millinery magic was definitely on the cards. I adore hats. Beautifully crafted ones that speak quietly to style and imagination. Do I have a favourite period? Well no, though I love quirk in modern pieces and the beautiful craftsmanship in those earlier ones.
For me, I’ve been entranced by Poiret (1879–1944) for a long time, he “who had elevated fashion to the status of an artform. Dress history credits him with freeing women from corsets and with inventing such startling creations as “hobble” skirts, ‘harem’ pantaloons, and ‘lampshade’ tunics, but these details have detracted from Poiret’s more significant achievements. Working with fabric directly on the body, Poiret pioneered a radical approach to dressmaking that relied on the skills of draping rather than tailoring and pattern making.
Looking to antique and regional dress, Poiret advocated clothing cut along straight lines and constructed of rectangles. It was an approach that effectively established the paradigm of modern fashion irrevocably changing the direction of costume history. Poiret’s modernity however, and its impact on modernism, that is, ‘stylistic’ modernism in its most restricted and traditional definition as an industrial, mechanical aesthetic appears to have been overlooked because of his narrative and decorative strategies.
Yet his modernity, expressed through the structural simplicity of his clothing signifies a pivotal moment in the emergence of modernism. Equally significant is his vision of the modern woman, epitomised by his wife and muse, Denise. Slim, youthful, and uncorseted, she was the prototype of la garçonne. Poiret used her slender figure as the basis for his radically simplified constructions. In 1913 he told Vogue, “My wife is the inspiration for all my creations; she is the expression of all my ideals.” If Poiret was the prophet of modernism, Denise was its most compelling incarnation.
By 1911 hats became much smaller although large wide picture hats were still worn for dressy functions. These smaller hats of 1911-12 were adorned with stiff spiky hussar plumes and fan effects of ostrich feather. By 1913 two long narrow plumes called Mephisto feathers gave many hats a curious military quality.
From 1914 the toques developed into tall toques and these were worn with the fashionable high collars of the day. More feminine styles included wider styles with deep crowns worn low on the head to hide all hair. Once the war started other hats developed military tendencies and by the end of the war tricornes and postillion hats were popular having first been adopted by war widows who added black veiling. Soon sophisticated women adopted them so variations on the veiled styles became the height of chic.
The cloche hat was fashionable from 1908 to 1933 was one of the most extreme forms of millinery ever with an appearance that resembled a helmet. As early as 1908 close fitting hats with deep crowns that clung over the brow had emerged and as the war years progressed. At both the start and end of World War 1 the close head fit became even snugger.
From 1916 the cloche was firmly established as a style women wore a great deal. Of all the hat styles, the cloche is one of my favourites. I have five of them, one French, two Italian and two Australian. In Winter I wear them often because the style lends itself to warm ears and keeping the rain and wind out of my eyes. Their style is indisputable, sublime in my books and I love it that women are also high in complimentary numbers too. They’re still head-turners as far as my experiences go.
As Men’s hat’s go, there are some styles for me that are simply classic like the vintage felt 1950’s skinny brim pork pie Sinartra style fedora by Adams or the 60’s Sinartra style fedora with a wide ribbon band and a jaunty feather. Trilby’s with the Tyrolean look and rope trim were big too along with the retro Olive green fedora with a skinny brim. One of my all time favourite men’s hat styles though is the Vintage Borsalino fedora of the 1960’s a soft felt with a tear drop crown and pinch front.
Borsalino is the name of a hat company known particularly for its fedoras. Established in 1857, they produce their felt from Belgian lapin fur at their factory in Alessandria, Italy. Giuseppe Borsalino visited Italy and France to learn the hat trade, and set up the first artisan workshop for the production of felt hats. When he died, he was succeeded by his son, Teresio Borsalino, in the family business. His success lasted until the 1940s when the hat business declined in prominence.
In 1970 it inspired the film: “Borsalino”, which was moderately well received. In 1986 the factory moved to its current site in the suburbs of Alessandria, leading to the opening of the University of Alessandria as well as a Museum dedicated to the History of the Hat and both created in the former Offices that the Borsalino Company had resided in.”
I suppose any blog might be seen as disrespectful if it didn’t reference either the Bowler or Top hats. I’ll be honest, they’re probably a bit staid for my liking nevertheless, at the time the bowler connoted a more democratic future, the top hat, most certainly represented, in the words of hat historian Colin McDowell, “the power of political conservatism and the rule of the status quo.”
The top hat traces its origins to the tall sugar loaf hats of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. After an 18th Century hiatus where the tricorne and bicorn (also known as the cocked hat) supplanted the high hat as the fashion of the day, the high hat, in its new iterations, most notable the stove pipe shape that we now know as the top hat returned to rule the day in the very late 1700s.
It’s reputation was firmly established when, in 1890, the St. James Gazette wrote, “When we are told, ’he’s a fellow who wears a top hat and a frock coat,’ we know sufficiently well what sort of fellow he is.” When Edgar Degas paints his series of Portraits at the Stock Exchange he is certainly commenting on this stuffy, out of touch, segment of society. Of course, Freudian psychologists had their own interpretations on these hats and those who wore them regarding them as obvious phallic symbols.
As funny and impractical as top hats may seem to our modern ideas on fashion, they have stood the test of time. True, after the advent of the automobile at the beginning of the 20th Century and the top hat’s impractical fit both literally and figuratively in the Modern Age, it’s popularity did wane” but it’s proven as years pass that it’s also a survivor.
My friend Lucas wears a 1960’s-70’s fedora trilby style hat in wool tweed, his rangey body type makes for a slim line effect that many would die for. In plain-speak that means he’s tall and thin and a jaunty hat offsets what me and his mountains of other friends know is typically Luca, artist in residence!
Another friend, Listman often wears a vintage dark charcoal late 1950’s-60’s skinny brim fedora hat that adds style to his youthful years. I recall him using my head as a stand-up hat-stand stand-out in my favourite Thai Restaurant in Summer Hill. For a moment in time I ALMOST felt brat-packish. Want a change of scenery? Wear a hat. It’ll give you a whole different perspective on life!
