2011-11-27T08:26:00.001-08:00

Many hats are intended only for men or for women, while other hats are fashionable on both sexes. Purveyors of men's hats are called hatters and purveyors of ladies' hats are called milliners.

A hat may be either placed on the head or, in the case of some women's hats, secured with hat-pins (which are pushed through the hat and the hair).

Physical attributes

Hats are made from a variety of materials, including wool and fur felt, twill, canvas, leather and straw. Fabric, leather and straw hats are specially constructed to be a certain shape. Most felt, straw, and some fabric hats differ only by cosmetics, determined by how the hat is blocked, or shaped by a mold or by hand. Blocking the hat shapes the crown by applying steam to the material to soften the fabric and, once finished and dried, fix the shape of the hat. If the hat's material is strong enough, it often can be reblocked to another shape.

It also comes in many sizes. Felt hats also vary by stiffness, depending on how much shellac is applied to the felt. Additionally, many soft wool felt hats are crushable or packable, meaning that the material can return to and hold its original shape even after being folded and put in a suitcase. Hats that are not explicitly advertised as such should never be folded as they may be permanantly damaged. Some straw hats can also rolle up to fit in a tube. Such a rolling practice was done for unblocked Panama hats, resulting in a distinctive crown with an narrow outward lengthwise crease.

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2011-11-25T03:28:00.000-08:00

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Histiry of The Cap/ Hat

2011-11-25T03:12:00.000-08:00

Latest historical cap news in the world, here described.
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 is 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 brin.

Although women from an beginning 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 Near about 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 often 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 War-Time again, it was mainly the trims which were changed with women making do with turbans made from pre-war materials.

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.

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 new-found freedom and independence. This new situation meant, however, that they no longer had so much time or energy to spend on being fashionable.

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Histiry of The Cap/ Hat