How hats went from mandatory to optional fashion accessories

Head coverings have always been a symbol by which people could be recognised and are important in denoting social status, religion, nationality or political beliefs. We might wear a hat to mark our identity, or purely for aesthetic reasons.

At the beginning of the 19th century, when clothes were straight cut, with simple outline lines and less demanding construction, fashion-conscious women covered their heads with caps made of silk muslin or cotton decorated with lace or embroidery. On summer days it was fashionable to wear straw hats decorated with ribbons and flowers.

Towards the end of the 19th century, clothing gradually became more layered, voluminous and structurally complex. Hats also evolved in shape, height, width, type of decoration, material and position on the head.

Various styles of hats were advertised through fashion magazines that democratised fashion and made style trends widely available.

The development of women's hats runs parallel to the development of the fashion or milliner craft.

Unlike the hatter, this craft is younger and approaches the making of hats artistically and decoratively, and not only with the purpose of protection. Milliner was a typically female occupation that was initially associated with tailoring and whose development, like the development of fashion clothing, was initially linked to the court.

Queen Marie Antoinette's favourite dressmaker Rose Bertin was also a very skilled milliner. Her headdresses were made of straw, lace and decorative ribbons, and were sometimes shaped like small wearable sculptures.

Throughout the 19th century, the art of making hats became more and more appreciated, and the milliner craft provided women with safe and respectable employment.

The first famous milliner was Caroline Reboux who, like Charles Worth, was discovered by the then-fashionista Princess Pauline von Metternich.

The hat, as a fashion accessory, became popular in the 20th century. Around 1900, dress etiquette dictated that a woman should not leave the house without a hat.

Owning and wearing a unique model of hat signified the wealth and social status of the wearer. Women's hats, therefore, came in many shapes, colours and materials, while men's hats retained a classic style and shape.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, milliners honed their craft and creativity to make headgear in even more sizes, shapes and colours.

From elegant bell-shaped hats to Elsa Schiaparelli's fantastic hats in the shape of shoes, hands or lamb chops. Fashion magazine Vogue declared that hats should be 'the crazier, the better'!

After World War II, fashion accessories, and especially the hat, tried to return to their pre-war importance.

By this time, in a lot of cultures, the importance of headgear as a social obligation had made way for wearing hats as purely a sense of personal taste. By the end of the 1960s, with the emergence of countercultural movements that aimed to reject and redefine social rules, the popularity of hats had severely diminished.

This blog was written as part of the CRAFTED project, which aimed to enrich and promote traditional and contemporary crafts.