Fur Hats of the Sixties

One great thing about winter hats is that they often remain popular even in times when hat-wearing in general wanes. The 1960s was a big transitional time for fashion, including hats. When summer fades away, however, especially in colder climates, a hat starts to sound like a good idea. Ears get cold no matter what the fashion forecast.

No matter where I looked for sixties hats in my research, I would see fur hats, so I wanted to make them one of my styles to focus on this month.

The fur hats of the sixties share one main distinctive feature with most hats of this decade: they are tall. Tall hair needs tall hats.

The above article appeared in The Canberra Times (Thursday, April 13, 1967, page 19) and shows a range of fur hat styles. You can see how they would all accomodate a high hairstyle. In general you see the same shapes in fur as in summer hats (the pillbox, the tall sixties take on the cloche) but also some unique-to-winter styles, like that giant hood. I've seen similar hoods as part of ski outfits, and I imagine that is its intended purpose.

This photo is from an article in The Australian Women's Weekly (Wednesday, March 13, 1968, pages 92-95) called "A Touch of Fur". The photos show big fur hats, fur collars and cuffs, and these delightful big pillboxes (and some fabulous eyelashes).

Both real and artificial furs were around in the sixties, and both feature in the descriptions of hat fashion trends, but all of the photo captions I've seen are for hats of real fur. The Women's Weekly article, for example, mentions fox, Russian marmot, and arctic fox, others include possum, chinchilla and mink, and I'm sure there are many more. Developments in artificial furs were still being made, and I don't know what the quality was like in the sixties, but for some climates, they would have offered a more appropriate alternative for milder winters.

These days, faux fur fabric is pretty amazing, and I used to be quite obsessed with it, so luckily I have a large supply of good quality faux fur in my stash.

I wanted to make a no-fuss fur hat to showcase that tall flowerpot-esque sixties silhouette.

I also made up the same shape in a grey-brown faux fur.

And a short-pile plush fabric that I suppose is a cheetah print. The lighter-weight fabric gives a different feel to the hat. It loses the impression of size that the thick fur gives, but gains a textural element at the top as it crumples.

I also wanted to have a go at making an even bigger fur hat. I've gone with a more classic "cossack" style shape, straight up and down rather than tapering. Inspired by the ski-hat above, I added a band of brown velvet ribbon to break up the expanse of fur.

In a nice coincidence, while I was editing photos for this post, I read a post about "Winter Fashion by Decade - 1960s" from Bobbins and Bombshells. It's the last in her series about winter fashions and I've really been enjoying it, and this post has a lovely image of some more 1960s fur hats. I recommend you check it out if you haven't already.

As you can see, I'm struggling with self-control at the smorgasbord of inspiration! I didn't even get to a fur pillbox or attempting the giant hood! And I can just imagine wearing one while I fall over again and again on skis. I'm not sure if it would add to or compensate for that loss of dignity.

This post is part of a series "Hats of the Past: A milliner explores history." In the previous post, I talk about my first impressions and changing ideas about sixties fashion.

Learning to Love the Sixties

What do you think of first when you think of sixties fashion? 

I want to begin my month of sixties by talking about what I used to think about sixties fashion, when my ideas were the kind of confused muddle that is usually produced when you have been exposed to images, movies and TV but have given no significant thought to the matter.

I have listened to a lot of Donovan and Jefferson Airplane in my time, but with fashion my ideas blurred muddily with the fifties and seventies. Of course, that is not inappropriate, because fashion does the same thing. Trends don't instantly and neatly change when the decade ticks over (unfortunately for my current purposes).

Regardless of that excuse, let me share what went on in my brain when I thought of the fashions of those decades:

It was while preparing an outfit for a 1970s event at school that I started to get a beyond-Abba understanding of seventies fashion. Realising how much I didn't know was one trigger that set me on the path to this blog series. (I should, however, point out that although I know there is much more to seventies fashion than white flared jumpsuits, I'm not sure that I care. What more could you need?)

So I began this project, and decided to start with the sixties. Strangely, although a bright mini-dress would be my first thought of 1960s fashion, if I thought about 1960s hats, I thought of Jackie Kennedy (and possibly Audrey Hepburn) and big pillboxes. Which didn't really seem to fit into my schema, I knew I was pretty confused.

I started to pour through Pinterest, Etsy and Ebay for 1960s fashion and 1960s hats, and identify the key hat styles that appeared again and again. My list of resources has improved since the beginning, and I'll be approaching my research for the 1950s with a bit more... rigour, but the haphazard approach still did the job of educating me pretty well! (You can peruse my 1960s pinterest board for an idea of where my ideas are coming from.)

The biggest surprise for me in this process has been how much inspirational and fun millinery was happening in the sixties, and how much I've come to appreciate the hats and fashion. I don't think I ever really enjoyed sixties fashion before, but I find myself drooling over mini-dresses, bright opaque tights, and even shapeless swing coats (which I used to despise!).

I can see that this blog series is going to have the dire effect of making me a fan-girl for every era of fashion, one at a time, as I gorge myself on images and ideas.

I honestly expected the sixties to be pretty thin on the ground for hats, because I saw it as the decade when hats stopped being the required accessory for a women every time she left the house.

While I still see the sixties as the transition decade for hats, the situation is certainly more complicated than that (I'll be looking at this more in a later post). There were still many new and fun styles introduced, and many classics given the sixties treatment - made bigger to accommodate hairstyles, worn at different angles on the head, and made using new developing materials. I feel I could spend ages on the sixties, but I have one month, and I look forward to spending this month sharing it all with you!

Sorry for the massive long post of writing, and I promise the bulk of the posts will be image-filled. To tide you over, here is a Kotex advertisement from The Australian Women's Weekly, September 7th 1960. It demonstrates that, at the beginning of the decade at least, hats were still such a common everyday accessory that it was taken for granted that this sentiment would be understood. (Another ad in the same series has the same line, but about changing your dress, so we see hats and dresses as almost on par in importance.)

I find this ad not only divinely amusing but also a great peek at sixties hat styles, and a swoon-worthy salon image too. Truncated cones for all! I love that white one with the black bow. Maybe I have time to make just one more...

This post is the first in a new blog series "Hats of the Past: A milliner explores history." If you want to know what to expect, you can read about my plans for the series. The next post will feature the first of the sixties-style hats I've made! Yay!

My small but growing hat pin collection

Remember my great-grandmother Dora? I shared some gorgeous pictures of her and her family and showed you the 1920s beaded pieces I am lucky enough to have that belonged to her (or possibly her mother).

Dora collected hat pins (among other things). Once I started making hats, my mother and grandmother would say what a shame it was that the collection didn't come to our side of the family, and I too wish that it had. Of course I am blessed to have as much lovely old family stuff as I do, and I try to remember that and enjoy these things.

You can't help indulging in a bit of wistful and wishful thinking though, and this has grown in me a fascination with hat pins. I plan to learn some jewellery making skills and make my own, but so far that hasn't happened, and instead I am starting to buy a small collection.

First, I bought a pin off ebay. I don't even think it is a hat pin, but some other-purposed pin, since it is so small (about 2 inches long). This was one of my big regret impulse online purchases (there's been a few), and I gave up on the hat pin idea for a while.

Then I went to lunch before Christmas with a very dear friend from work and got to meet her family. It was a bit of a "While You Were Sleeping" family event. (In my family, whenever a conversation is getting confused and going off in multiple and/or odd directions, you can say "These mashed potatoes are so creamy" and that sums it up!) If you aren't familar with the movie, what I mean is that I felt instantly welcomed into this warm and loving family, but it was also a bit crazy. In a good way. And I was given (given!) two family hat pins by my friend's lovely mother. Belonging, if I remember correctly, to her grandmother and great-grandmother.

One, by the length, I would say is Edwardian or Victorian, made to go through a large wide hat over some large wide hair.

The other is an interesting textile and metal combination, with a much shorter pin. I would guess at 1920s, but I'm not sure. In fact, I'm pretty clueless about hat pin eras, so I won't even guess for the rest.

So by this point I was starting to get hooked. At the trade show for the International Millinery Forum I saw a few vintage hat pins. There were a few I liked, but this one in particular had an unusual design that really appealed to me.

I cautiously asked how much, and was told $2! Mine! And some more thank you very much!

Finally, the latest addition, at $4 from an adorable little "Old Wares" shop on an otherwise-residential street corner in one of the suburbs surrounding Wollongong.

They are all a bit damaged, but so cute and charming. What do you think? Which is your favourite?

Another Straw Hat Makeover

This time I didn't visit an op-shop for a hat in need of a refashion, but my grandmother Wendy's house. Wendy has a wall covered with old straw hats, many of which she was given by a friend who was trying to get rid of them. They are all very dusty, and a lot of them are pretty battered.

Like the target of today's makeover.

To be fair, the main problems with this hat were dust and being crumpled, both of which would be quick fixes. But under that band lurked secret issues.

This string has been threaded through the straw and left some pretty daunting holes and marks.

So I knew what I wanted: to get rid of the bottom section of the sideband, but keep the nice open woven section just above. Checking what Wendy wanted gave us a vision: something to wear to the shops and out for lunch.

We cut and washed and re-shaped and edged and wired and experimented and tried on until we had something new and fun.

I admit it has some similarities to my last straw hat refashion, and a somewhat 1940s feel again. I must I have some neural paths in my brain that point straight from straw hat to 1940s.

I picked out a range of petals from my boxes of taken-apart-and-washed flowers, keeping to a pink-red-peach-orange sort of colour scheme and tucked the reassembled flowers into all the folds. Somewhat like this one I'd seen floating around Pinterest a few times.

I love knowing I've turned a dust-catching and space-wasting item into something new, exciting and wearable for Wendy.

In other news, it's almost March, which means it is almost sixties time! In case you missed it, I'm talking about the first month in my new blog series "Hats of the Past: a Milliner Explores History".

I am a bit overwhelmed by all the exciting ideas and hats-in-progress, but I have a big week ahead working on finishing everything up as much as possible before the series begins. There is an unusual amount of orange in my craft room!

Also, March will mean the end of the current 25% discount offer for the grand opening of my online shop. Don't forget to use the code TRDopen to get that discount.

I've been slower than I planned in adding new items to the shop, but here are some that have gone up since I opened it.

This is one of my older hats, a Tudor style French hood inspired by Red Riding Hood. It's still one of my favourites.

These others have appeared on the blog much more recently. The floral garland and the pink dragonfly hat are both refashions from op-shop purchases.

Even though I would love to have photos of all my hats on real models, I'm so happy to have my gorgeous display heads for the rest of the time. They are the most instantly-elegant, and the quietest, models I've used and they let me push them around to get the angles I want.

I've discussed the possibility of a new display head design with my talented artist friend, so I'm searching for inspiration images. Do you have any favourite looks for vintage display heads?

A Custom Pillbox: from idea to sketch to finished item

Today I'm sharing with you a pillbox I made recently as a custom order, and talking about how the custom design process worked in this case.

We begin with a dress pattern and a plan. My client was making this dress for a special occasion and wanted a hat to go with it.

We had a long back and forth exchanging thoughts and ideas. She sent me some images of vintage hats and fashion illustrations. We talked about why she liked each one, about the event, the colours and fabrics of her dress. From that conversation, we were able to rule out some of the inspiration images as lovely but not right for this occasion and outfit.

Next I sent her some sketches. The first was based on the remaining image she had sent.

I also suggested another style I thought might work. You may recognise that I later made this one anyway, and used it in my Bandeau class at the IMF.

She had also suggested a pillbox, so I also sketched that idea, with the wide ribbon-y loop trim from the first sketch.

This is the one she chose. She posted me some leftover fabric from her dress. The fabric turned out to be very thin, so I reinforced it with interfacing when covering the base, but no amount of pleading would make it fold beautifully into stiff loops! So I tried draping it over wire loops, but it was not a success.

I'm going to show you the terrible reject stage of progress, for the sake of transparency, but don't judge me too harshly! I fixed it!

Yikes, huh?

It wasn't looking like either of us had imagined. So I bought a more suitable fabric to do the loops. The upside of this failed attempt was that somewhere in the draping in put a few strips across the pillbox, and I loved that feature! So I kept it in place in the next round of playing.

That's more like it. This is the pinned-in-place and still-playing version, but it was definitely going where we both wanted it too.

I just had to stitch things in place, neaten up the top bands to lay smoother, and then I added some buttons too.

An elastic and a lining and it was ready to go. Nestled into a cosy pile of tissue paper in a shiny box, with loops of cardboard to support the trim as it travelled.

It's gone off to its new home now! I hope you enjoyed this hat and its creation story.

And of course, if you want to be a part of a story like this, you can contact me about having your own custom hat made. I love making whatever hat I feel like, but it doesn't compare to making a special one for a special person.

A Weekend of 1920s

Waking up to heavy rain on the day of our 1920s croquet afternoon was dispiriting, but we got dressed up and crossed our fingers. I wore the pink cloche with swirly rosettes.

The rain had eased considerably by afternoon, but an umbrella escort was still the best option for taking your shots, before returning under cover.

This was inconvenient, so in the end I dispensed with my hat and stopped worrying about the rain.

This is all happening at the Blue Mountains Manor House, as part of the Roaring 20s and All That Jazz Festival. I'm ashamed to say this is the first time I've been to the Manor House, even though I walk past it to the train station!

I also made a hat for the lovely Ruanne. She wanted something with a wider brim for the sun (we wish), upturned at the front.

I took the opportunity to keep practising my straw braid skills, and added some of the leftover fabric from her dress (which she made herself).

And for dinner, I swapped to a black felt cloche, and jet in place of pearls. Just a few days earlier I bought a broken necklace, and it makes the perfect sparlky fringe for this hat.

I only got a quick mobile portrait on the night, but here are some more photos of the hat.

One of the things I love about blocking felt is playing with the ends in different ways. It's never the same twice.

I discovered something important this weekend - croquet is fun! I wasn't too terrible at it, either, which makes for a nice change.

Now all we need is our own manor house with a big flat lawn...

Pink 1920s Felt Cloche

This year I've joined the "Historical Sew Fortnightly" challenge. I love this kind of challenge. A theme, an idea, a restriction. Something that makes you think in different directions than you otherwise would.

This is actually challenge number 3 for 2014, but I only just decided I would join, so this is my first one. The restriction was simply: Pink.

Although I went on a Pinterest frenzy finding pink hats, in the end my inspiration came from a black-and-white photo I had pinned months earlier. Now I'm paying for my pinning sins because the original source is not forthcoming on this one. But I've found another blog with the photo, it's the last one in this post, with the swirl and the bling.

When I did the single swirl, I wasn't happy with it, so I added some more. I was also a bit tentative about the bling, but I stuck with my source, dug through my op-shop finds, and blinged it up. I think I like it!

The Challenge: Pink 
Fabric: Pink wool felt hood
Pattern: No pattern
Year: 1920s
Notions: Thread. Bling. Glue.
How historically accurate is it? 80-90%
Hours to complete: 3-ish
First worn: Just for photoshoot
Total cost: about $20

One of the aims of the Historical Sew Fortnightly challenges is to promote historical research and accuracy. This one should be pretty good. Felt cloches were pretty popular in the 1920s, and the design is based on an original hat from the era. I assume that the processes for making millinery felt will have evolved a fair bit since the 20s, but I imagine the end product is fairly similar.

Even though the colour was the key element of this challenge, I prefer it (and me) in black-and-white. I promise I haven't edited the hat nearly as much as my face.

I have a 1920s-heavy weekend ahead of me too, so there will be more cloches to show next week! Fingers crossed that the rain eases up enough to play some croquet.