As seasoned postcard collectors (or deltiologists as they are more formally known) will know, there have been thousands of subjects featured on many millions (if not billions) of cards over the years, with the simple messages on the reverse offering, at times, a vivid insight into the world of ordinary folk of the period – the things that surrounded them and the comings and goings that mattered to them in their daily lives. The spectrum is enormous – from trams to theatres, politicians to policemen, and even time spent at the seaside – you name it, it’s probably been on a postcard. However, it will come as no surprise that, like so many old things, great numbers of cards have been destroyed over the last century or so by the ravages of the passing years or basic lack of interest. How many wonderful cards have simply finished up in a skip and thence on to landfill? The numbers must be huge. That said, one has to give a belated vote of thanks to all those folk who, however unwittingly, have taken the trouble to keep granny’s old family albums and collections of cards tucked away in a drawer or cupboard somewhere, often for decades, and by doing so have fortunately preserved them in decent condition for us to enjoy today.
Thankfully, the vast numbers of cards originally produced means that large quantities have survived into what today has become a huge collecting hobby across the world, offering today’s dedicated collector more than an even chance of finding ever more additions to their collections. At postcard fairs around the globe, the supply seems almost endless. There are arguably more postcards around than pretty much anything else in the collecting field and within this massive stock falls the ‘Real Photo’ or, more commonly, ‘Photographic Glamour’ cards. In my case, this means young ladies smiling coyly out at us from the early years of twentieth century, wearing an amazing array of headgear including those huge feathered hats or the smaller sized ‘Fascinators’ as many of them were known then (and still are today), accompanied by furs, stoles (which could often take the form of a whole fox draped around their shoulders), boas and parasols. Maybe, here and there, they can be seen clutching the odd feather fan and a host of frills and fripperies – the sort of thing our grandmothers or great-grandmothers would have worn with relish in their day.
From time to time over the years, my late mother would dig out her collection of old family photographs and we would all have a good laugh at how everybody had changed over time. Since I was a kid, I had always been aware of ladies wearing huge hats by virtue of the fact that amongst those treasured family pictures, we had a charming old photograph – dated around 1910 as it turned out – of my grandmother and her sister (my great aunt Maud) dressed in their best outfits and topped off by a couple of huge hats. (See frontispiece). It seemed almost impossible that my dearest ‘Nana Rosie’, wrinkled and fragile, busying herself with her knitting, had been the attractive young lady in that picture taken all those years ago. How on earth could this now frail, white-haired old lady once have been this trendy young butterfly?
The following pages feature hats and glamour in profusion – ever more Edwardian postcard images featuring further examples of the astonishing variety of fashionable hats during that period.
