Speaking of Antiquing – April 2018

The wearing of a hat is as old as civilization. A head covering is worn for protection against all types of weather, ceremonial and religious mandates, modesty, safety, and as a fashion accessory.

Hats were a symbol of social status or class. A Top-hat in the 19th century was worn as an indicator of status for wealth and standing—the higher the hat, the more wealth.

Military hats indicate rank, nationality, or branch of service. Hats also signify types of professions, such as a chef’s hat, nurse’s hat, or policeman’s hat. American businessman once wore Bowlers, Fedoras, or Derby hats as a matter of course, while tradesmen wore caps, hardhats, helmets or cowboy hats.

Millinery was typically a woman’s occupation in the 18th century, beginning in Milan, Italy where quality hats were produced. Hats and bonnets were decorated with lace, trimmed and accessorized to complete an outfit. Women’s hats became much larger and very stylish before becoming smaller in the 1920’s. Hat brims were once much wider than one’s shoulders and with the addition of accessories and lace, they sometimes caused a woman to lose her balance.

Throughout the Depression, women wore hats, despite tight budgets. Outside the home, to be seen without a hat was unthinkable. Even when money was tight, wearing a hat meant security and stability.

Coco Chanel, herself a professional designer and milliner, was quoted, “Saying you don’t look good in a hat is like saying you don’t look good in shoes.” Her simplicity and fashion sense kept women’s hopes up as she helped put everyone in hats!

From the Revolutionary period of American history to the late 1960’s, hats were a mainstay of fashion. Hollywood movies from the 1930’s-1950’s always featured a woman in a hat, and trends followed in the culture. Into the 1960’s, hats became modish and trendy. Private schools and churches still required the wearing of tams and hats. Jaqueline Kennedy helped make the pillbox hat popular, as women again returned to wearing hats to complete an outfit.

In the late 1960’s, cultural shifts saw hippies reintroduce floppy hats and bonnets, and by the 1970’s the Catholic Church dropped the requirement that women wear hats during Mass. Hats fell out of everyday fashion. Cowboy hats, however, never went out of style, but men did shift to baseball-style caps in the 1980’s. By then, the idea of wearing a hat indoors was no longer considered inappropriate.

Today, anything goes—seen on those wearing baseball caps sideways, backwards, inside out or upside down—nobody cares. Nevertheless, there is still an element of the classic—and classy never goes out of style. As Coco said, “Fashion changes, but style endures.”

Here at Pickety Place, we carry a very interesting array of vintage hats!