Hang onto your Hat's

Hats, well we all love them, and  we have been wearing them for thousands of years  to prove it, if not for safety, to keep warm, oh and certainly for a touch of status perhaps.  It’s not really that long ago they became covetable designer objects in their own right. Though the word ‘millinery’ derives from the Italian town of Milan it was, ironically, the French aristocracy in the 18th century, (where ironically quite a few were about to lose their heads) who first took the humble head covering and turned it into a must-have fashion accessory, with the skillful artists at the court of Louis XV  they created  whimsical fantasies of lace, ribbon and straw.

By the turn of the century, the Edwardians, true masters of excess, had taken the look to extremes and used very rare osprey plumes and commanded outrageous sums of up to £100.  Queen Alexandra, wife of Edward VII, forbade the wearing of rare osprey plumes at court, that sorted them out. 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.

Of course men are just as in love with hats as we girls are and the top hat was worn to show that "I am rich"  and here was me thinking it was just so they could doff their hats to the ladies!

 The style of a cloth cap can be traced back to the 14th century in  Britain and parts of Italy, when it was more likely to be called a "bonnet", which term was replaced, except in Scotland, by "cap" before about 1700.Well as I am a Scot it's a bonnet pronounced as bunnet.

 When Irish and English immigrants came to the United States, they brought the flat cap with them. This style of cap is also referred to in some parts of the UK as a cheesecutter cap because of its wedge shape.

Well if the Edwardians created whimsical hats what on earth word could we use for today! I could just see me trying to go shopping with an ice cream cone on my head.

For me there is one guy that stands out from the crowd specially when he wore his hats (oh don't forget the  poncho)  in his  many films, and even today I still love him yes it's Clint, an early photo of him here and he still looks good to me today. What say you?

Photos courtesy of devonshirecourt.org/Forthcoming-Events.php, www.bestweekever.tv/.../, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_hat, antiquetrader.com

The Ups and Downs of Shoes

Do you ever look at what shoes people are wearing? I have found myself staring at people's shoes recently, and have become fascinated at what I have seen. Only the other day I watched a young girl wearing a pair of very narrow tipped high heels, and  the concentration that she needed for staying upright created one of the most amusing walks I have ever seen. (eat your heart out John Cleese). I had the perfect seat in a cafe to observe all of this whilst waiting for a friend to arrive.

It was the click clack click followed by a scraping noise that drew my attention at first, on first look I thought she had been drinking and then realised that the swaying was part of her strategy to remain upright and at the same time trying to advance forward. It was one of the funniest things truly I have seen in awhile, and so because shoes are much more than simply an item of clothing - they can be objects of fantasy and desire, they can make us feel good or they can be instruments of torture and abuse. Let's just have a look at some.  Never even knew that there was such a thing as shoes for crushing walnuts!  Ouch to the nails below. And as for the binding of feet can only say I am glad that that era is over.

Did you know! Edward II originated shoe sizes in 1324. He decreed that 3 barley corns, placed end to end, equaled one inch. 36 barleycorns, end to end, were the actual length of his own foot. Each barleycorn was one third on an inch, which added up to 12 inches or one "foot." The longest normal foot measured 39 barleycorns, or 13 inches, and was called size 13. Smaller sizes were graded down from this number, each by a third of an inch.

Thanks to a stray comment by Confucius, mothers in 10th century China bound their daughters’ feet, hoping to achieve a “golden lotus,” a foot measuring just 3 inches. The "lotus" feet looked like tiny hooves and almost immobilized a woman. A symbol of high status, they were also considered powerfully erotic. In 1911 the practice was banned, and in 1949 Mao made it apenal offense to bind girls' feet, which was out of favor by then anyway. (The two paragraphs above are from  http://www.shoeme.com/history.htm)

Image credits: Bata Shoe Museum Photos' by David Stevenson and Eva Tkaczuk, South Shields Museum, The Stockholmtown Blog, urbanupdater.wordpress.