My latest blog post follow on from the prompt Sepia Saturday photograph of a group of women and a lone man - all wearing hats around 1930s and 1940s. I focussed on the man and looked at their fashions down the ages in headgear.
Beginning young - My uncle Fred, c.1910 in a large hat
Women have
lots of hat styles but apart from cloches, berets and the current
fashion for fascinators, I cannot think of many given a distinct name.
Very different for men, as I soon discovered.
- Fedora and trilby came on the scene in the1890's and were made popular by 20th century movie stars such as Frank Sinatra and Humphrey Bogart.
- Homburg - named after Bad Homburg (‘Homburg Baths’), a town
in Hesse in Germany, where it was created.Think of Edward VII, Winston
Churchill and Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot.
- Pork Pie - another mid 19th century development and one associated with the man about town and jazz musicians.
- Straw Boater - traditionally associated with Venetian gondoliers that became a popular choice for summer wear.
- Panama - another popular light hat, though it actually originated in Ecuador.
- Beret - associated with peasant wear in France (think Onion Johnny)
and Spain. Adapted in Scotland to become a "Tammie" - after the Robbie Burns hero Tam O' Shanter - often topped with a pom-pom.
- Deer Stalker - think of Sherlock Holmes and upper class country wear.
- Bowler - think of the typical London businessman of the 20th
century with rolled umbrella, briefcase and bowler hat; also movie
comedians Charlie Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy.
- Top hats - think of romance and swirling capes - the symbol of the 19th century society gentleman, and now more associated with Ascot Races and weddings.
Below are some men's hats from my family photographic collection, though I can't always identify the style by name.
Master
Mariner John Robert Moffet (c.1814-1881) was my husband's great great
grandfather. In the early census returns he was living near the docks in Stepney and
Limehouse, London, but by 1871, he and his family returned to his roots
in South Shields on England's north east coast.
This dubious looking character, I am pleased
to say, is no relation, as far as I know, but he features on the right
in the photograph below of my great grandfather James Danson, sitting
merry in the ancient stocks in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire. And are those berets worn by the two men seated on the left?
Wearing a straw boater is
John Mason who married my great great aunt Alice
Rawcliffe. of Hambleton, Lancashire. They had six children in England,
before emigrating in 1886-7 to the teeming tenements of Brooklyn, New York where they had a
further five children, three not surviving infancy. This
photograph came from my third cousin Bonnie - finding her was a great
blog success story and I am grateful to her for filling a gap in my
family history.
The
three men in the front of this wedding picture are all carrying hats -
panamas or trilbys? My father, John Weston (on the left) is looking very solemn
at the wedding of this eldest brother Fred Weston at Leicester in 1929.
I
remember Dad wearing a trilby and, when he climbed up the business
ladder he often went down to London on the train, carrying his "badge of
status" - bowler hat and briefcase. Nobody ever thought, though, to
take a photograph of him.
The
three men in the front of this wedding picture are all carrying hats -
panamas or trilbys? My father, John Weston (on the left) is looking very solemn
at the wedding of this eldest brother Fred Weston at Leicester in 1929.
I
remember Dad wearing a trilby and, when he climbed up the business
ladder he often went down to London on the train, carrying his "badge of
status" - bowler hat and briefcase. Nobody ever thought, though, to
take a photograph of him.
The flat cap brigade! A photograph
of my grandfather William Danson seated with a group of workers at the
ICI factory at Thornton, near Fleetwood, Lancashire. Was this some
special occasion with Grandad given the pride of place at the front? He would have had his 50th birthday in 1935.
In Britain flat caps were generally associated with workers in the industrial north . Think of old photographs and newsreels of men streaming from the mills, or cheering from the football terraces or enlisting for the First World War.
I think of them too as worn by coster-mongers in London - memories of Eliza Doolittle's father in the film of "My Fair Lady"; or Del Boy in the TV comedy "Only Fools and Horses".
At the other end of the social scale, the Duke of Windsor as Edward Prince of Wales, in the 1920s/30s was photographed in a flat cap as part of a golfing outfit. Nowadays finer versions are popular rural wear at farming events, countryside fairs, horse race meetings etc. And if you have the youth and looks to get away with it, flat caps are being worn as fashion statements by "celebrities", in including women.
My own father and also my husband would not be seen dead in one!
And what about the style for young boys? The hat-wearing fashion started early. Below is my uncle Fred Weston again - this time in c,1909.
His hat looks more like a sombrero, it is so huge for a wee boy. I
wondered at first if it was meant to reflect the popular fashion of
sailor outfits for children, but have not seen a coat like this before
in old photographs, It is onze of the few photographs I have of my father's side
of the family as chil
I
remember my brother wearing a school cap like this, often perched on
the back of his head, when it wasn't being used as a football. Here is my husband' brother c.1936.
On ten years to a
photograph below of my my husband in his school cap with
his father sporting a beret. They were on his motor bike, so such a
headgear would be very much frowned upon in today''s health and safety era when helmets are the norm.
Nowadays
men wearing hats are either sporting the ubiquitous baseball cap, or in
more
wintry weather a warm knitted beanie - where did that name
come from? Google has a variety of answers. In Britain it gained
popularity from a character in TV soap opera "Crossroads" where the well-liked Benny wore a knitted version of the hat.
Husband in his beanie, with daughter doing their "Hills Are Alive" act from "The Sound of Music" on the wintry hills around Hawick in the Scottish Borders.
I
could not end a feature on men's hats without recollecting the men's
hats, topped with feathers and badges, seen on our holidays in southern Germany and Austria.
Here is a
fun representation! Enjoy!
Post adapted from one first published on 2015.
****************
in this week's prompt photograph.
Copyright © 2025 · Susan Donaldson. All Rights Reserved
A fun post full of photos & information! One of my grandsons likes to wear flat caps. I gave him one in a dark blue & green plaid from Scotland as a souvenir of our first trip there in 2015, bought at the shop at John O'Groat's signpost. :)
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed seeing all the different men’s hats. I dare say I wouldn’t know one from another Myself. Interestingly, enough yesterday, I bought a new hat, which is a very rare occurrence in my life. It’s a packable sun hat To shield my faice as much as possible!
ReplyDeleteI love this post since I'm a hat wearer and have a collection of maybe a couple dozen that I wear for different occasions or weather. Before I first went to Britain I often wore a flat cap but after learning about its regional/class distinction I stopped, partly because I didn't feel intitled to wear one. Lately I've been considering getting a Homburg or a bowler.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago I was given a Russian style black fur hat, (actually made in Belarus) which I only wear in very very cold weather. It is very imposing and came with a badge of the hammer & sickle of the Soviet Union. When a friend pointed it out and said she remembered it because the Russian Communists invaded her homeland of Hungary, I took it off and substituted the old Russian Imperial Emblem. However now I proudly wear it with a blue and yellow badge of Ukraine.
Thank you all for sharing your enjoyment and memories in hats!
ReplyDelete