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While hats have
changed their look, feel, style and construction
material they have been around a long time. Here we
explore the history of this fascinating part of fashion
history and also look at the methods the Shady Brady Hat
Company uses to make their hats.
John Brady has been
making hats for over twenty years. His business, Shady
Brady Hats is now located in Northern California.
However, John's personal hat history has taken him
around the world learning, developing and creating the
methods used today to create the distinctive Shady Brady
Hat line.
Hats have been
around for a very long time. It is impossible to say
when the first animal skin was pulled over a head as
protection against the elements and although this was
not a hat in the true sense, it was realized that
covering your head could sometimes be an advantage.
One of the first hats to be depicted was found in a tomb
painting at Thebes and shows a man wearing a
coolie-style straw hat. Other early hats include the
Pileus, which was a simple skull cap, the Phrygian cap,
which became identified later as the 'liberty cap' given
to slaves in Greece and Rome when they were made free
men, and the Pestasos which comes from ancient Greece
and is the first known hat with a brim.
Although women from an early stage were always expected
to have their heads covered by veils, kerchiefs, hoods,
caps and wimples, it was not until the end of the 16th
century that women's structured hats, based on those of
male courtiers began to be seen.
It was in the late seventeenth century that women's
headgear began to emerge in its own right and not be
influenced by men's hat fashions. The word 'milliner', A
maker of women's hats, was first recorded in 1529 when
the term referred to the products for which Milan and
the northern Italian regions were well known, i.e.
ribbons, gloves and straws. The haberdashers who
imported these highly popular straws were called 'Millaners'
from which the word was eventually derived. By the mid
1800's Swiss and Italian straws, together with imitation
straws made from paper, cardboard, grass and horsehair
were available to women, along with the introduction of
velvet and tulle.
During the first half of the nineteenth century the
bonnet dominated women's fashion, becoming very large
with many ribbons, flowers, feathers and gauze trims
giving an appearance of even greater size. By the end of
the century, although bonnets were still prevalent, many
other styles were to be found, including wide brims with
flat crowns, the flower pot and the toque - feathers and
veils abounded.
Although early in the 1900's most hats were enormous and
adorned with flowers, feathers, ribbons and tulle, by
the mid 1920's women's hair had become much shorter with
the shingle cut and the cloche, which hugged the head
like a helmet with a very small brim, had come into
fashion. Now, after World War 1, there was suddenly such
a proliferation of styles and materials that many women
had to rely on the advice of milliners.
From the 1930's to the 1950's it could be said that New
York, with its many European immigrants had become the
world's leading millinery city, with department stores
such as Sacs Fifth Avenue, Henri Bendel and Bergdorf
Goodman leading the way with their own millinery
workrooms.
During the 1930's and 40's the tendency was for hats to
have higher crowns with smaller brims and once it was
Wartime again, it was mainly the trims which were
changed with women making do with turbans made from
prewar materials.
By the 1950's the arrival of ready-to-wear clothes was
robbing the milliners of their crucial part in the world
of fashion. Equally during the War many women, who had
not previously worked, found themselves employed and
were then loathed to lose their newfound freedom and
independence. This new situation meant, however, that
they no longer had so much time or energy to spend on
being fashionable.
In the 1960's the hat was once again overtaken by wigs
and hairdressers, who colored, back-combed and sprayed
women's hair into exotic 'sculptures'. Both men and
women also realized that they could dress less formally
and the hat was inevitably a temporary casualty.
However, in the 1980's and 90's there has been a revival
of interest in women's millinery. This was instigated,
to a large extent, by public figures such as the late
Princess of Wales's enthusiasm for wearing hats. Many
new hat designers have emerged because of this, and
therefore has made the 90's a very innovative and
diverse period for hats.
Since their invention, hats have come and gone as status
symbols, uniforms and fashion statements as well as
being functional sports and protective headgear.
There are still, and presumably always will be, two
basic styles - brimmed and brimless - and two basic
forms - caps and hats. Milliners take these shapes and
with the aid of many trims and details, create a
never-ending range of hats for men and women.
At Shady Brady Hats we have spent years designing the
process now used to make our hand crafted hats. We start
with only the finest materials. In this manner we are
able to guarantee our hats for a full year. Something
not often found in our industry.
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