Customer Question: Millinery vs. Hattery

I'm often asked by customers and others, 'What's the difference between a hatter and a milliner?' I'm also frequently asked what are the differences between men's and women's hats, and the materials used to make them. To explain, a bit of history is in order.

As many of you may have noticed, there are a number of different words used to describe hat-making and the people who make hats. While 'hat-maker' is fairly generic, the terms 'milliner' and 'hatter' tend to get used interchangeably these days, but they actually have two very different meanings.

'Milliners' make women's hats. Women's hats and the process of making them is called 'millinery', and a hat shop that sells them is known as 'a millinery'. 'Hatters' make men's hats. The process of making men's hats is 'hattery', and a men's hat shop is called 'a hattery'. Why the distinction? Until the early 20th century, the two disciplines- making hats for women or for men- used totally different techniques and materials, and many differences between them continue today.

(On a side note, many people call hat makers 'haberdashers.' I get this all the time. For the record, a haberdasher sells men's clothing and a haberdashery is a men's clothing or department store, nothing hat-specific about it.)

Traditionally, most millinery was made of fabric layered and stretched over a rigid core of starched linen or buckram, usually with a wire frame skeleton to hold the shape, like the one shown in this page from an early 20th century millinery manual.

The millinery-style hat was constructed of flat pieces (as seen below), sewn together mostly or entirely by hand, and to a lesser extent by sewing machine. The process required some special materials, but otherwise had a lot in common with garment construction and required few special tools other than those needed for hand sewing (needles, thread, a thimble, etc.).

The exterior fabric was often matched to a particular outfit, but the focus of ladies hats was usually on the trim- ruffles, fabric flowers, ribbons, veiling, feathers, beadwork, passementerie, faux fruit and foliage, often piled so high that the shape of the hat itself was hardly visible.

A selection of bonnets, 1870s

While this millinery process was the norm for centuries, ladies hat making now mostly employs techniques and materials (i.e. blocking with felt) from the men's hat making tradition, in part because of changes in fashion (more on this below), and also because blocking a felt or straw hat is a lot faster and easier than sewing together many layers of fabric and other stuff to make one hat.  Ladies' millinery of this older type is now rarely commercially made outside of the luxury market and theater costuming.

Men's hats were traditionally produced in a very different way- felt or straw molded to a shape, using wooden hat blocks and specialized hand tools.  Read this post for more information on hat blocks and how they're used. Whereas millinery was mostly constructed using a pretty basic sewing kit, hattery is relatively tool- and equipment-heavy. Toward the end of the 19th century, a number of specialized tools and sewing machines for men's hat making were invented and produced by companies like Singer and Wilcox & Gibbs, to do things like sew in leather sweatbands, create welt brim edges, sew on edge binding, etc. For those (like me) who LOVE tools, there is so much to geek out on and learn about and collect, from blocks to conformateurs to hand tools like those pictured below.

The men's sizing system was different than that used by millinery, their linings were constructed differently, and whereas ladies hats usually have a soft fabric ribbon for a sweatband, hattery calls for a stiffer leather band inside. Rather than relying on a wire frame to provide structure for the hat, the body of the hat itself was stiffened (with various additives, like gelatin, glue or shellac) to give it more structural integrity.  Although a man's hat might be trimmed with some feathers, ribbon, etc., the shape of the hat itself was the focus of the design. All of these differences in material and design require different techniques for construction and finishing of the hat.

Men's hats were almost exclusively made of felt or straw until the rise of the silk plush top hat in the second half of the 19th century, which was invented as an alternative to increasingly scarce and costly beaver felt hats, beavers having been hunted almost to extinction by around 1850. The silk plush top hat was made from silk velvet fabric mounted on a hat form made from shellac-stiffened fabric and polished to a mirror finish, but even these were made very differently than millinery. (I could go on and on and on about top hats, but I'll describe their history in more detail in a future post)

Vaudeville performers Bert Williams and George Walker in silk plush top hats, circa 1900

Throughout history as today, men's hats have been more standardized than women's hats in style. While millinery usually offers novelty and variety, hattery tends fall into a narrower range of identifiable shapes like the bowler, homburg, and ever-popular fedora.

 A selection of common late 19th century men's hat styles, circa 1890

Street scene with tons of bowlers, circa 1900

Men and women have both long worn hats made of straw, either woven into a basic hat form and then blocked to the desired shape, or spiral-sewn into shape from ribbon-like strips of straw braid. But, the design and finishing of a straw hat would be different depending on whether it was intended for men or women.

 

Edwardian-era straw hat with fabric trim and feathers

 

A classic boater hat, circa 1920s

In the late 19th through the early 20th centuries, boaters and other straw hats were incredibly popular for both men and women. The sewing machine company Willcox & Gibbs even produced a machine with a special braid-guide so that spiral-sewn hats could be made more quickly, easily and accurately.

But felt was still considered most appropriate for menswear. Women sometimes wore men's hat styles (i.e. felt hats, or silk plush top hats) before the turn of the 20th century, but they were generally only to go with menswear-inspired outfits meant for specific activities like hunting or riding, and even then were considered to be at least a bit racy, possibly even transgressive. Mannish hats worn by women first came into fashion for regular daywear, albeit a risky one, in the 1780s. Women who wore them were criticized in the media and by their less fashion-forward peers. Marie Antoinette was especially fond of menswear styles, and the public disapproval she received for her sartorial daring was a contributing factor to the French Revolution. (Want to know more? Read this book.)

The following photo of a Victorian-era lady wearing a dashing equestrienne outfit is another good example of a menswear-for-women mash-up. Although it hardly appears so to modern eyes, at the time this ensemble would have been considered very masculine, because of the tailored simplicity of the clothing and the rakish men's-style bowler. Although this was a popular sportswear look during the 19th century, it would have been considered inappropriately cross-dressy if worn in any other context.

So, felt hats for women were then still only a small and specialized part of the lady's hat wardrobe. Felt didn't make real inroads into millinery until the invention of the cloche hat style in 1908 by Parisian milliner Carloline Reboux. These soft, close-fitting hats had relatively simple and minimal decoration, perfectly matched to the modern spirit of the Art Deco era. They were wildly popular through the 1920s and early 1930s, supplanting most other ladies hat styles, and even influenced many women into cutting off their long hair into the short, boyish 'flapper' haircut that best coordinated with its shape.

It's clear that the cloche's design drew inspiration from the headwear worn for adventuresome pursuits popular at the time, like aviation and world travel. With its simple lines and straighter silhouette, women's clothing in general during this period was considered to be more masculine-looking than what came before.

 

 Aviatrix Amy Johnson, circa 1930

 

Pith helmet-like cloche hat

Cloches required a very different type of felt than that used for men's hats. Soft, thin felts were needed to get the right look, similar to the soft leather aviation helmets of the time. Although there are many different types and weights of felt available today, 'men's felts' still tend to be thicker and stiffer, whereas 'ladies' felts' are thinner and more flexible, requiring different finishing techniques. New materials for the core layer in sewn millinery were also developed around this time, mostly replacing the old-fashioned cardboard-like buckram, to give some structure to a fabric-covered hat while allowing it to be pliable enough for comfort in the new head-hugging styles.

During the 1930s and 1940s, ladies clothing took even more cues from menswear, as tailored suiting became a major trend. Mens-wear inspired hat styles for ladies became predominant, and soft felt hats based on fedora and top hat styles were very popular, but constructed differently- softer materials, ribbon sweatbands, etc. The trim was feminine but usually minimal compared to the excesses of earlier millinery. These trends have continued through today.   

Ladies fedora-inspired 'sport' hat, mid-1930s

World War II-era menswear-inspired tailored suits, mini top hat, and mini tricorn

Meanwhile, during the late 19th century and through the 20th century men's hats changed as well, as men's fashion became more and more casual with each generation. Around 1900 bowlers and homburgs overtook the top hat, followed by fedoras around the 1920s. The soft fedora has remained the most popular men's hat style from the 1920s on, with variations in brim and crown shape and size following the fashion of the times, but it still retained a heft and more tailored construction than ladies' hats until recently.

Men's fedora styles circa 1950

Over the past 50 years, casual styles for men and women have drifted even closer together. After a few decades in which hats were out of fashion almost entirely, fedoras have made a major comeback during the 21st century. Men's mass-market hats now often use softer, less structured materials (sewn and then blocked fabric hats are currently very popular), and have fabric or ribbon sweatbands instead of leather, and are for all intents and purposes unisex in style. Ladies' mass-market millinery continues to offer a slightly wider range of styles, but tends to focus on vaguely menswear-inspired shapes feminized through color and trim choices. I'm talking about the cheap-to-mid priced hats you see all over, by companies that are using factory or overseas production and cutting corners to make products in large quantities as cheaply as they can.  This is ok, if you're just looking for a disposible hat to knock around in, but the end result is a bit bland and lacking in quality. And really, if the quality is not very good the hat probably does not last very long. Do some math and divide the retail price by how many times you can wear an item before it wears out, then consider how much you're paying for it per wear, and you will find that better quality products that last a long time are less expensive than you thought, and that 'cheap' products may actually be more expensive than high-end ones. The good news is that if you're looking for a really great hat, there are a number of high-end hatters and milliners working around the world who can still offer distinctive products made with traditional construction techniques, who still invest time and better quality materials to make something really special. I'm proud to be one of them.

Personally, although I'm very interested in the history of fashion, I don't feel the need to follow just one tradition or stick to just one set of rules. Traditions are great because they often involve things that started out good and have been developed and improved upon over time, and we ignore them at our peril. But having learned enough to know what it's good for, there's no point in following a tradition unless it does what you need it to do. Although most high-end hat makers choose to specialize in just one or the other, I continue to seek out and learn as much as I can about traditional millinery and hattery to have as many techniques at my disposal as possible, and then pick and choose among them to apply the right skill for the job at hand. This way, I can pull good ideas from all different styles and time periods to offer my customers the best quality, unique, beautiful products.

Customer Question: A Bit About Blocks

I was recently asked about my hat shapes by a customer, who noticed that my mine are different from other hats they've seen on the market. There's a good reason for that: mine are different, and here's why.

Except for a few hand-draped pieces, all of my hats are made using hat blocks. A hat block is a mold made of wood that you stretch felt over to create the shape of the hat. If you'd like a better idea of how this works, see this great video made at the Stephen Jones Millinery workshop. They are using two layers of fabric material instead of felt, but otherwise it's a very similar process to how I use my blocks.

I like this video because, although the process has been edited down from many hours to just a few minutes for illustration, in watching it you can get an idea of all the laborious hand work that goes into making a single hat.

As you can see in the video, the resulting hat is the exact size and shape of the blocks. So, except in the case of draped hats (in which the felt is sculpted by hand like clay, instead of stretched over a block for shaping), a separate block is required for each shape and size to be made. For example, in order to offer a full range of adult sizes for sized hats, as many as eight (or more) blocks are needed in different sizes but an identical shape, and that only creates that one style. More styles require further sets of blocks. In practice, most hats require two blocks for each size, one for the crown (the top of the hat), and another for the brim. As you can imagine, this adds up, and if you're inclined to collect them, blocks can easily take up a lot of storage space and tools budget. But because I want to offer my customers unique styles that cannot be purchased from other hat makers, I've made collecting carefully designed, skillfully made unique blocks a priority for my business.

Over the past few years I've amassed an extensive collection of blocks. Although most of the blocks available on the market are standard, rather generic shapes available to any hat maker, with very few exceptions, all of the block shapes I use are one-of-a-kind and not to be found elsewhere. A few of my blocks are unusual, hand-carved antiques that I've found here and there, and therefore unique because of their scarcity, but most were custom made exclusively for me by Guy Morse Brown Hat Blocks in the UK. Their ever-expanding catalog of standard styles has many interesting shapes, and their quality and craftsmanship is top-notch. Over the past few years, I've commissioned many original block designs from GMB, they do an incredible job of bringing my ideas to life, I can't recommend them highly enough to anyone interested in buying blocks from their catalog or as custom pieces.

New Hat Style: Yvette

Inspired by the quirky, asymmetrical 'doll' hats popular just before and during World War II, this slightly mini top hat shape is shorter on one side and taller on the other, with the brim canted at the opposite angle, and the crown tilts forward like a little Alice in Wonderland teacake about to topple over.


I made this sample in a gorgeous charcoal gray fur felt with black and gray ribbon trim.


Dressed up with peacock sword feathers, dyed to match the felt and curled into spirals.


I've been collecting vintage hats for almost 25 years and my all-time favorite was made by a Parisian Milliner named Yvette Delort: a little late-1930s 'doll' top hat that is asymmetrical, has a ruched silk lining and a silk plush exterior (rare for the period), and is entirely hand-sewn. This hat has seen better days, is a bit squashed and rubbed around the edges, but it's my Velveteen Rabbit of hats: a little pal, my millinery mascot, bursting with personality. If my house was burning down, it's one of maybe 10 things I would try to grab on my way out the door. The more I learn about hat making and the more I look at this hat, the details and fine workmanship that went into it, the more I'm convinced that the person who designed it was a genius.

Here's a photo of the lovely young Mlle. Delort looking gorgeous wearing one of her own creations, circa 1931.


Yvette Delort opened her shop in Paris in 1930, and there are a handful of references to her in the fashion magazine L'officiel de le Mode from the 1930s. I suspect that she probably was working in someone else's millinery shop before that, given the Victorian or Edwardian characteristics of the hat (the way the lining is sewn together, the materials chosen, etc.), she obviously learned the trade and traditional techniques from other milliners of long standing. She was clearly still working through the 1930s-- my hat's shape is spot-on for the particular style of 'doll hats' that were popular right before the war-- but as yet, I have found no trace of Yvette Delort after the late 1930s. Perhaps she was one of the many French fashion workers who closed up shop at the start of the German occupation in 1940, and like a large number of them, wasn't able to recover enough financially to resume her business after the war was over.

So, I wanted to create a hat inspired by my little vintage favorite and the lady who made it, and turned to my custom hat block maker, Owen Morse Brown at Guy Morse Brown Hat Blocks, to design a set of blocks in the same vein. As usual, GMB came through for me with a fantastic work of art. Owen is as talented as all get-out. The 'Yvette' is not an exact copy of the vintage Delort hat, but an homage to it. I'm looking forward to experimenting with the 'Yvette' blocks to make hats in lots of colors and different types of felt (I'm planning one for myself in pea-green for daywear). While it is still a mini hat, it's a bit larger (in terms of head size) that the 'Belle Epoch' mini top hat that's been my best seller, and only half as tall. It should work better as a cross-over day-to-night hat than some of my other, more costume-y styles.

More photos coming soon, it looks even more striking in shiny long-napped 'beaver' felt!

ADS Hats has the charcoal gray one pictured in stock, and Dark Garden has one in black long-napped fur felt with black trim for sale right now.

Lady Tux

Since looking at all those images of top hats for a recent post, I can't stop thinking about lady tuxes. While I love making and wearing ultra-feminine and hyper-decorated hats, my personal taste in clothing tends to run in the Lady Tux direction- not normally feminine women's clothing, and not full man-drag, but somewhere in the middle. I like tend to go for formal, simple clothes with interesting lines but a minimum of pattern or surface decoration, and to save the flash for hats and other accessories. Here are some of my favorite images.

For a lady in menswear, you can't beat Marlene Dietrich.


Marlene outshines Cary Grant in an all-white tux.


Another white tux, on Katherine Hepburn.



Josephine Baker



Anna May Wong


All that Lady Tux action in the movies in the 1930s inspired some intrepid non-Hollywood ladies to try wearing pants for the first time. Here's an original 1933 sewing pattern for a Lady Tux. Copies available for sale at Eva Dress. It's on my 'someday' project list...


The Lady Tux had its Hollywood heyday in the 1930s, but its roots go all the way back to the beginnings of the 'menswear for women' trend that started in the Tudor period, which really gained traction in late 18th century. Before the late 1700s, only lady pirates wore men's clothing (in the Western world, anyway), except for the occasional masculine-ish equestrienne outfit worn only on horseback. But Marie Antoinette, for all that she is remembered for her frilly, flowery, feminine wedding-cake dresses, was also scandalously fond of wearing menswear. Not just women's clothing with 'masculine' details, but full-on breeches.

She even had a short-lived anti-corset phase during her teens (gasp!). In the 1780s, she and her fashionable friends adopted mens hairstyles, and designed dresses, coats and hats modeled on tweedy equestrian English-style menswear.

She spent astounding amounts of money on clothes, and made daring fashion choices throughout her life. Her sartorial indiscretions were the major reason she became more and more unpopular with the French people during her time as Queen, and were one of the precipitating factors of the French Revolution. For more on this fascinating subject, read 'Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution' by Caroline Weber.

Ironically, during and after the French Revolution, women throughout Europe adopted a menswear-inspired wardrobe that was very similar to the butch outfits for which Marie Antoinette had received so much crap just a few years earlier.



The following outfit is from the same timeframe. It's a pivotal image for me, and the earliest really Lady Tux-like outfit I've been able to find evidence of. Before discovering this photo, I was never that into the 18th century fashion-wise, but seeing this made me really interested in learning about the period. It's from a book of photos of costumes from the collection of the Victorian and Albert museum, published in 1908.


Throughout the 19th century, equestrienne wear had a definitely tux-like tone, and masculine details bled into daywear as well.




Ever since then, Lady Tuxes keep popping up in fashion, they're so classic that they're never really out of style.

Yves Saint Laurent started designing tuxedos for ladies, called 'Le Smoking', in the 1960s, and they became a staple of his career.


Dita Von Teese in formalwear, wearing a hat by Stephen Jones, 2008.


Daphne Guiness


Over the last few weeks, I've been working with my custom hat block maker on the design for full size top hat blocks. I should receive the first prototype block around the end of December, and then the rest of the set (so I can do a full range of sizes) a few weeks later. I can't wait, I'm positively squirming with excitement to add these to my range of hats.

Full Size Top Hats Coming Soon

Working now with my custom hat block maker on a new design for full size top hats, based on the 'D'Orsay' top hat that was popular circa late 1800s-1930. This will be a hat block style exclusive to House of Nines Design. With time for prototyping, I should be ready to roll them out in 4-8 weeks.

Here are some of the images I've been using as inspiration for the D'Orsay.

Vaudeville!


More Vaudeville: San Franciscans Bert Williams and George Walker.


Victorian equestriennes.




The immortal Marlene Dietrich.


The incomparable Josephine Baker.


Fun during the Belle Epoch.



There was so much variety in top hats during the 19th century.


The famous 'Butterfly Dandy", Comte Robert de Montesquiou (by Boldini).


Una, Lady Troubridge (by Romaine Brooks).

Yes, I know there were no actual hats in either of these last two pictures. It's all in the attitude.

Add a little voodoo.


And now, for some vintage hats.




German circa 1920.


This one was listed on ebay a while back as having belonged to a 'Hudson Bay' American Indian chief circa 1890. I don't know about the authenticity of that assertion, but it sure is cool.