Full Tilt

Tilt Hat, The Vintage Hat Series. Marshall Field & Company, Chicago.

In the 1940s tilt hats – or perchers as they were also known for obvious reasons – were worn on top of the head. Often decorated with ostrich plumes that bobbed about provocatively, they were tilted at a saucy angle (for greater effect as one fluttered one’s eyelashes at a handsome officer). Add a veil and a flick of black liquid eyeliner, and that officer had no hope. Precariously angled, the hats were prevented from succumbing to gravity by means of an elastic band.

My brown wool felt hat trimmed in a toffee coloured feather indeed possesses one of these wide elastic bands, but either women’s heads (mine) today are much larger than their Forties sisters’, or the band has lost its elasticity, because I cannot fathom how to attach it to my head without utterly ruining my hairstyle. Or perhaps the knack for it has been sadly lost in the mists of time. I shall have to invest in a hatpin.