But why my interest in these ladies and their hats you might ask? Well, as a traditionalist and historian, all I can think of as an excuse is that they are so evocative of that long-gone period of our history leading up to the Great War. A period which, thanks to the benefit of rose tinted spectacles, seems a gentler and much more elegant age – at least for those with money and status within a rigid and entrenched class structure. For some reason, the Edwardian era, (possibly due to the many period dramas on TV, particularly the popular Downton Abbey), has managed to leave us with visual impression of a sort of romantic golden age; warm sunny afternoons; the hunting, shooting and fishing set in their tweeds; genteel social events such as Royal Ascot and Henley Regatta; the mellow glow of Empire and naughty Bertie having fun with his ladies. For the poor and lower classes however, it was a very different scenario.
Their majesties King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. Note the queen’s rather distant look. Was she perhaps contemplating her husband’s numerous affairs or perhaps remembering Denmark?
On the far side of the world, large hats, not surprisingly, had also become all the rage. Pictured here at the Deepwater Races in New South Wales, Australia in 1910, we see two smiling ladies (giant hats firmly in place!) as they take a spin on a local fun fair ride.
Whatever the true realities of Edward VII’s reign, it seems almost absurd to us in the early twenty-first century that these beautiful young ladies walked around in those often huge Edwardian UFO sized hats – smothered with feathers and various other animal trimmings – (once referred to as ‘zoological decoration’), without batting an eyelid. And yet all those grainy old films and newsreels of the day show us that’s exactly what they did – and went about their business without a second thought.
However, there were certain everyday problems. As an example, the traditional music halls flourished during the Edwardian period and, as a patron, you would certainly not want to find yourself seated behind one of these ‘dedicated followers of fashion’ in her large and obtrusive hat. Having said that, and to be fair to the theatres themselves, many insisted that lady patrons remove them – which for some was no mean feat. Similarly, any attempt at a furtive kiss from some ardent young admirer must have proved problematic! Have a look at any old movie film of the period, such as those to be found in the Huntley Film Archives or British Pathe for instance, and it can be very difficult to pick out a lady in any upmarket Edwardian street full of people who is not wearing a hat of some shape or size. What those wearing ultra large ones did on really windy days, or being driven around in the newly fashionable motor cars, or sitting in an open-topped tram, heaven only knows, but such is fashion and in good old British tradition, they coped!
One account by a certain Minna Irvine related the problems with motoring in 1909 when she recounted: ‘…before I had been riding half an hour. I discovered that motoring discourages all the vanities of fashion. As soon as the machine gathered speed, the wind whipped my coat open and tore off my hat!’
Notwithstanding the odd passing difficulty, and to combat the ‘motoring’ problem to some degree, veils were introduced to secure the hat in place, protect the hair and keep out at least some of the dust while on the road. Some enterprising retailers, seizing the moment, also went as far as advertising their hats as ‘Suitable for Motoring’. An image from 1909 also shows one couple, with the lady wearing her ‘motoring’ style hats, taking their marriage vows and tying the knot in a balloon high over New York! Ballooning and balloon racing had become very popular in Edwardian era and another image, also from 1909, shows the large field at the swanky Hurlingham Club in London, full of large gas-filled balloons and, even fuller still, with large numbers of fashionable (and presumably pretty well off) lady spectators in their large feather covered headwear waiting for the spectacle of the take offs.
The following pages, feature images of an amazing range of ladies feathered hats, a number of which were possibly included in various copies of The Queen magazine during the Edwardian period. They give the reader a first-hand taste of how this particular fashion craze had captured the imagination of both the upper and lower classes within society and the female public in general. Similar images were to be found in various notable fashion magazines of the period such as La Mode Illustrée in France.
