Petite Sweet

The Vintage Hat Series: 80s cocktail hat

This little cocktail hat is so Eighties I feel I should be sipping on a Fluffy Duck. When I first glimpsed this tiny confection in a Salvos op-shop, a bowl of raspberries and cream instantly came to mind, so perhaps a Jam Donut cocktail would be more apt.

The base is such a delicious shade of vanilla, but it is the little floral trim – pansies cut from velvet – and veil that make it a simply irresistible mouthful.

A likely suspect. A vintage 80s Victor Costa dress.My guess is that someone wore this to a wedding – perhaps a bridesmaid – with a meringue puff of a dress made from latté ruched taffeta. Or perhaps it was draped raw silk in a delicate shade of oyster? Anyway, at the end of the night (or perhaps sometime on the next day when her hangover wore off, and she had finally removed her mascara), she lovingly returned it to its little box, where it was cradled on a mille feuille of tissue paper… and never saw the light of day again.

Twenty years later whilst cleaning out the depths of her wardrobe, this young woman (now a matron) unearthed the box and pulled out the little hat in delight. She sat and wasted quite a few minutes smiling and reminiscing about the guy (whose name momentarily escaped her) she pashed on the day. She’d thought he was quite good-looking, in his powder blue suit, bolo tie and the…  mullet…

Shuddering, and suddenly coming to herself, she ruthlessly stuffed the hat back into the box and threw it on the floor with all the other old memories that were being donated to the Salvos. Where someone else – maybe a fashionable un-princess – could find and enjoy them.

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. 

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.

A Round of Crochet

I have a sneaking fondness for crochet.

There, I’ve admitted it out loud. Crochet does have a grandma-ish reputation, conjuring up visions of crocheted blankets and doilies; it is not of those multi-coloured relics I speak.

I don’t like crochet quite as much as lace, but there is a style of Irish crochet lace that very much resembles the Flemish needle lace that I so love.

There seems to be some controversy amongst fashion historians about the origins of crochet, but most agree that there is no record of this form of needle art prior to the 1800s. Certainly it was not until the 1840s that written instructions were published. It was the Irish who became world famous for their crochet or guipure lace in the mid nineteenth century, because of the need of the people to supplement their income due to the great potato famine.

My version of multi-coloured crochet.

Over the years I have managed to collect a few crocheted items: heavy vintage cardigans made from silk or rayon thread, a multicoloured skirt, a pair of gloves, and even a bag that appears to be crocheted from plastic wire. Sadly antique garments are beyond my purse (and I have seen a few beautiful boleros and jackets on eBay in recent days go for well over AU$400) – although at least I can still afford to buy a few potatoes.

Some antique and more modern samples below (click on image for larger version):

(Clockwise from top left) Doily, Sweden (Wikipedia); Marcel Wanders Crochet Table (bonluxat.com); Portuguese tablecloth, c 1970 (Wikipedia); Titanic era linen batiste gown (cocardesandcorsetry.com); Irish crochet lace, based on Flemish needle lace, late 19th century (Wikipedia); pendant lamps (stores.rianrae.com); Irish crochet lace, late 19th century (stitchinfingers.ning.com). (Centre) Crocheted chair by Marcel Wanders (marinsawa.wordpress.com).

Life, what is it but a dream?

What serendipity! Today – I learned by chance – is the very day, 158 years ago, that Alice Pleasance Liddell was born.

It was she who begged Lewis Carroll to write down the story of Alice’s adventures that he first entranced her and her sisters Pre-Raphaelite looks: I have always loved Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs, and immediately decided to do one in homage when I first started my Alice series last year. with whilst rowing down The Isis (part of the Thames) from Oxford to Godstow for a picnic. Several months later he presented her with the manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. (Read more of the history here.)

Carroll himself maintained in later life that the Alice of the story was an entirely imaginary character, and certainly Tenniel’s drawings do not resemble Liddell, although the book is set on her birthday, the 4th of May. Liddell however has inspired a number of other books, poems, films, and even an opera. Yet how extraordinary to have been the muse – however inadvertent – behind one of the world’s most famous children’s tales!

On this anniversary of her birthday, I’ll leave it to Lewis Carroll to have the last word, in his acrostic poem from Through the Looking-Glass.

Alice Liddell, age 7, photographed by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) in 1860.A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July—

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear—

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die.
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Alice Liddell as a young woman, photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron.Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream—
Lingering in the golden gleam—
Life, what is it but a dream?

Don’t forget to check out the Out-takes & Extras gallery for more homages to Julia Margaret Cameron.

A great resource with a biography and more examples of her work can be found here at Artsy.