FIDM Museum Blog

Sarah Elizabeth Craft’s Easter bonnet, 1852

According to superstition, wearing new clothes on Easter Sunday ensures good luck throughout the coming year. Those with a cynical bent might suspect this superstition was developed by retailers, but it predates contemporary holiday-themed marketing campaigns. A saying attributed to Poor Robin's Almanack, a series of almanacs first published in the late 17th century, indicates the belief is at least several hundred years old: "At Easter let your clothes be new, Or this be sure you it will rue."

Poised between winter and spring, Easter marks a symbolic transition from cold weather to warmer temperatures. During the Victorian era, Easter was both a solemn religious occasion and an appropriate time to replace a tired winter wardrobe with cheerful spring attire. It marked the beginning of the spring social season and the first time it was permissible to wear new clothing after the austerity of Lent. In 1890, Harper's Bazar described Easter Sunday as the day that "new bonnets and spring gowns first see the light."¹ 

Girl's bonnet
1852
Silk taffeta & silk ribbon
Museum Purchase
2009.5.73A

Green in fashion

Thanks to Pantone, avoiding a pinch on St. Patrick's Day will be much easier this year. According to their decree, 2013 is the year of emerald green, a rich jewel tone "that enhances our sense of well-being, balance and harmony."¹ Due to Pantone's promotion of the color, retailers are well-stocked with garments and accessories featuring emerald and other shades of green. So, if you wear green on St. Patrick's Day, you'll be sporting the most fashionable color of 2013 and immune to the painful pinches given to those who shun green clothing on this informal holiday.

In the FIDM Museum collection, we are fortunate to have some wonderful green garments and accessories. In honor of both St. Patrick's Day and Pantone's color of the year, today's post features an emerald green silk bonnet from the late 19th century. Want to see another emerald garment from our collection? Revisit our post on James Galanos' vivid 1950s cocktail dress.

"Kate Greenaway" bonnet
c. 1880-89
Museum Purchase
2004.5.11

Bat hat, c. 1916-18

What's Halloween without a bat? These small, flying mammals are a favorite Halloween motif, appearing as costumes, decorations, even candy. Though they're generally harmless to humans, western cultures usually consider bats the eeriest of creatures. Blame this bad reputation on their nocturnal lifestyle, and the blood-sucking habits of vampire bats. Though most bats eat insects or fruit, vampire bats eat blood, sucking it from cows, chickens or other livestock in the dark of night. Though humans aren't the vampire bat's preferred meal, they occasionally bite people, sometimes transmitting rabies. Though a vampire bat's bite doesn't turn an animal or human into a blood-sucking monster, western culture typically associates bats with death, danger and disease.

During the latter half of the 1910s, the bat was a surprisingly popular motif. In 1916, Vogue featured a cut-steel bead bag with a red-eyed bat as the central motif. A year later, a Vogue article on women's millinery fashions highlighted a hat with two fully extended bat wings cupping the crown of a beige hat trimmed with sable fur. Bats were not the only animal-based millinery embellishment; feathers and fur were also widely used to create the statement hats popular during the second decade of the twentieth century. Our bat hat is composed of silk velvet, faux astrakhan fur and bat heads.

Hat
c. 1916-18
Museum Purchase in honor of Julia Long
2009.5.69AB

Adolfo hat, c. 1973

Fall is officially here! After the autumnal equinox on September 22, the days get shorter and the nights get longer. Even in Los Angeles, there is sometimes a chilly bite in the air. Naturally, we've got to start dressing for the weather--coats, sweaters, scarves and hats are on the agenda. In honor of the changing season, today's post features an early 1970s felt hat by Adolfo.

Adolfo
c. 1973
Gift of Anonymous Donor
99.40.1

Though Adolfo (b. 1933) once claimed that he “never enjoyed making hats,” they were his entrée into the fashion industry.¹ Born in Cuba, Adolfo Sardinia immigrated to New York in 1948. Almost immediately after his arrival in New York, Adolfo began work as an apprentice milliner at Bergdorf-Goodman.  For the next decade, Adolfo toggled between Paris, where he apprenticed for both Balenciaga and Chanel, and New York, where he worked as a hat designer for Emme Inc. In 1962, Adolfo opened a New York millinery salon where he designed made-to-order hats for individual clients and ready-to-wear hats for retail distribution. He soon expanded his business into custom clothing, designing for socialites C.Z. Guest, Nancy Reagan, Betsy Bloomingdale, the Duchess of Windsor and others.

Crochet can hat, 1968-1970

We try to approach every object in the FIDM Museum collection with a critical, evaluative eye. But how do you maintain the necessary scholarly distance when confronted with a hat made from beer cans? It's hard not to smile, or at least raise an eyebrow when you see this creative hat.

Novelty hat
1968-1970
Aluminum cans, acrylic yarn
Museum purchase
2003.5.42

A Century of Millinery Style: Hats from the Helen Larson Historic Fashion Collection, 1820s - 1920s

 

 

A Century of Millinery Style: Hats from the Helen Larson Historic Fashion Collection, 1820s - 1920s is the latest installation in the FIDM Museum's Larson Gallery. Twenty-five rare women's hats, bonnets, and toques fill the gallery, offering visitors a chronological overview of 19^th and early 20^th century millinery fashions. Three fully dressed mannequins illustrate the relationship between hats and fashionable day dress. Period photographs highlight a range of millinery styles, from delicate to extreme. Two hat boxes, separated by 100 years, exemplify the large packaging needed to protect these expensive, and often fragile, creations.

The Larson Gallery is open July 31 – October 20, 2012, Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Hat
Label: J.W. Robinson Co.
Los Angeles, California, c. 1917
Metal sequins, silk velvet, dyed & lacquered stripped ostrich feathers
L2011.13.615

Day Dress
Label: Harvey Nichols
London, England, c. 1916
Printed silk, cotton organdy & cotton floss
L2011.13.975
Helen Larson Historic Fashion Collection; Proposed FIDM Museum Acquisition

 

Balenciaga hat, 1960

 

Throughout the 1950s, etiquette dictated that women wear hats for everything but the most informal occasions. Whether running errands, meeting friends for lunch, shopping for a new frock, or attending a meeting, the hat was a necessary accessory. A complete ensemble also included gloves (usually white) and matching handbag and shoes. By the end of the decade, increasing informality in dress and the popularity of larger, more elaborate hairstyles meant that hats were no longer strictly required. In 1960, Vogue noted this shift: "In another generation, we heard "you're not dressed if you don't wear a hat," but the obvious truth is that many smart women are now beautifully, though, hatlessly, dressed, wearing marvellous hair as a substitute."² Instead of wearing hats because they were socially necessary, Vogue encouraged its readers to wear hats because they were an opportunity for "chic women to acquire extra chic."² By end of the 1960s, however, women's hats had become largely irrelevant to mainstream fashion.

Cristobal Balenciaga
Fall 1960
Museum Purchase
2003.5.45

Blanche and Simone velvet hat, c. 1930-33

 

The 1931 Paris Exposition Coloniale Internationale was designed to showcase the artistic and cultural achievements of France's colonial possessions, while also demonstrating the mutual benefits of the colonial relationship. At the time of the Exposition, France's expansive colonial empire was second in size only to Britain's; by the 1930s, France and its colonies occupied "9.3 percent of the inhabited landmasses of the world."¹ With colonies in Africa, south Asia, Oceania, and the Caribbean, French political rule and cultural influence affected nearly every corner of the globe. Opening in May 1931, the Colonial Exposition brought the arts, architecture and people of France's colonies to Paris for a six-month stay. A correspondent for American Vogue visited the Exposition and described it as being akin to a trip around the world: "you are suddenly transplanted to far colonial lands--to jungles of Africa, to palaces of Angkor, into whole villages of Congo huts, to Chinese temples."²  The Exposition was widely covered in the international press and very popular; over 33 million visitors, from France and beyond, attended the Exposition. 

Headwrap style hat
1930-33
Blanche and Simone
Silk velvet
FIDM Museum Purchase
2009.5.21

Movie Modes hat

 

During the 1930s, Hollywood films were a major influence on fashion. Movie screens were "huge, luminous shop windows," offering viewers an opportunity to browse the latest creations from talented costume designers.¹ Despite the Depression, films were an affordable form of entertainment; during the 1930s, many movie theatres showed a double-feature, cartoon and newsreel for only 10 cents.² Recognizing that the public wanted to escape their problems, movie studios usually sidestepped the economic and social troubles of the decade, instead producing comedies, westerns and grandiose musicals. Designed by the likes of Adrian, Howard Greer and Edith Head, onscreen fashions inspired the fashion choices of both sophisticated urban women and midwestern farm girls. Believing that women filled the majority of theatre seats, Hollywood studios seized on fashion tie-ins as a means to promote their films.

Hat
Movie Modes
1935-1941
Museum Purchase
2009.5.48AB

 

Silk plush top hat, c. 1855-60

 

In the mid-nineteenth century, a gentleman of distinction wouldn't have dared to leave his house without a hat. The most popular style of men's hat was the glossy, silk plush top hat, sometimes called a chimney pot or stovepipe. Equated with authority and success, top hats were worn by the aristocracy, bankers, reputable businessman and politicians. Because of these authoritative associations, top hats were also worn by ambitious men of the lower classes who hoped to make their way in the world. Workers charged with keeping order, including stationmasters and male servants, often wore top hats as part of their professional uniform. Unlike today's top hat, which is worn only in a few formal situations, top hats were an everyday component of the masculine wardrobe.

Top hat
c. 1855-60
Museum Purchase
2010.5.13