All Angles

Geometric Hat, The Vintage Hat Series. Rosil, New York City.A black, wool felt hat alights like a streamlined angular bird on my head: a poetic description for an unusual and dramatic 1940s hat. At every turn of the head, a completely different silhouette emerges; am I Napoleon, or a heroine from a Forties movie in it?

It fits sweetly like a cap on the back of the head, while the brim, fanning out a bit like a bonnet, is trimmed with an olive green ostrich feather. Then there is the dashing flap that kicks out on the right temple, as though the hat wants to proclaim, “It might be wartime, but I sure got a whole lotta style”.

During the war years, when women’s fashionable propensities were curtailed by rationing, hats were one of the few items from a woman’s wardrobe that were not – perhaps because they were locally made, one source online suggests. Although fabrics were rationed, many trims used in millinery were not.

(Left) Hats from 1941 and (right) 1943. Images from www.fashion-era.com.

However, showing untoward interest in the fripperies of fashion was in considerably bad taste. A simplified style in dress was essential if a woman wanted to appear patriotic: short, straight skirts and boxy jackets, inspired by the uniform so many wore. So we have a dichotomy in hat styles: the severe military look with little trim (if any), versus tiny tilt hats, and variations on the beret that explode with a multitude of ribbons, feathers, netting and fabric flowers.

A woman’s serious suit might declare it to be wartime, but her jaunty hat could proclaim, “Where there’s life, there’s hope.”

Read more about 1940s hats here, and click here to view a great selection of pages from 1930s-50s French Marie-Claire.