Photo: Supplied.
BY JAN NARY
Redlands Coast Museum is tipping its hat to a fascinating collection of millinery with Le Chapeau, and you’re invited to see it up close.
“Many of the hats – and millinery tools – were donated by Brisbane milliner Dell Johnstone*, as well as some items from her mother, tailor Edna Hicks,” says Jan Banks, head of the Textile Group at the Redlands Coast Museum, referring to Le Chapeau, one of the museum’s current exhibitions. Le Chapeau features a curated collection of hats spanning from 1880 to the present day.
“Even up into the 1900s, it was important for a lady to wear a hat when she went out – it was frowned on to go out bareheaded; her hat was a sign of modesty. In some places, a woman could be reported for going out hatless,” says Jan.
“By the 1960s, that had changed, and hats became more of an enjoyable, optional fashion accessory.
As fashions changed, so did hats, and milliners began to play a more important role in couture.”
Materials commonly used included straw, felt, silk, taffeta, and sinamay. Sinamay is made in the Philippines from the Abaca banana plant; light, strong, stiff and durable, it is an obligingly adaptable material for hat shapes and decorations. The chaps haven’t been forgotten, and the exhibition features some distinctive samples of men’s hats, including the iconic Akubra.
The cloche (French for “bell”) hat, beloved by the 1920s flappers, is a classic example of a hat that carries a wealth of information about social mores and extended fashions of the time. They suited the fashionable new short bob haircuts and tightly framed the wearer’s face, with the new, bold makeup style of the day. Because they were originally worn pulled down over the ears and brow, they required the wearer to tilt her head up, giving a slightly haughty look that suited her thoroughly modern attitude. For those in the know, the addition of certain ribbons could indicate the wearer’s availability for dalliance. What more could one ask of a chapeau?
*A footnote: one of Dell’s commissions was to make five hats for bloodhounds to wear in a dog food commercial.
