Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Hats (20th Century)

Anonymous Milliner, USA
Hat
ca. 1905
embroidered cotton, machine-made cotton lace, silk satin ribbon
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Marie Louise
Hat
1912
silk velvet, grosgrain ribbon, metallic trim
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Toré
Hat
ca. 1915
silk taffeta and silk velvet
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Paul Poiret
Hat
1923
silk and leather
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Anonymous Milliner, Europe
Hat
ca. 1925
silk organza and sequins
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Lily Daché for I. Magnin
Hat
ca. 1938
straw and silk
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Rose Valois
Hat
1945
wool felt, silk velvet, ribbon, feathers
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Elsa Schiaparelli
Hat
1945
silk satin with dyed feathers
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Sally Victor
Hat
1952
wool felt
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Halston
Hat
1959
dyed fur, rayon ribbon, wool felt
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Adolfo
Hat
ca. 1960
printed silk shantung
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Gretta Netherby
Hat
ca. 1960
silk, cotton and wire
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Anonymous Milliner, Japan
Beach Hat
1964
raffia and straw
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Gustave Tassell
Hat
ca. 1965
feathers on foundation of silk faille
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Cristóbal Balenciaga
Hat
ca. 1967
silk tulle
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Hubert de Givenchy
Hat
1988
silk satin and acetate velvet
Philadelphia Museum of Art

from Letter to Lord Byron 

Byron, thou should'st be living at this hour!
     What would you do, I wonder, if you were?
Britannia's lost prestige and cash and power,
     Her middle classes show some wear and tear,
     We've learned to bomb each other from the air;
I can't imagine what the Duke of Wellington
Would say about the music of Duke Ellington.

Suggestions have been made that the Teutonic
     Führer-Prinzip would have appealed to you
As being the true heir to the Byronic –
     In keeping with your social status too
     (It has its English converts, fit and few),
That you would, hearing Oswald's honest call,
Be gleichgeschaltet in the Albert Hall.

"Lord Byron at the head of his storm-troopers!"
     Nothing, says science, is impossible:
The Pope may quit to join the Oxford Groupers,
     Nuffield may leave one farthing in his Will,
     There may be someone who trusts Baldwin still,
Someone may think that Empire wines are nice,
There may be people who hear Tauber twice.

You liked to be the center of attention,
     The gay Prince Charming of the fairy story,
Who tamed the Dragon by his intervention.
     In modern warfare, though it's just as gory,
     There isn't any individual glory;
The Prince must be anonymous, observant,
A kind of lab-boy, or a civil servant. 

You never were an Isolationist;
     Injustice you had always hatred for,
And we can hardly blame you, if you missed
     Injustice just outside your lordship's door:
     Nearer than Greece were cotton and the poor.
To-day you might have seen them, might indeed
Have walked in the United Front with Gide,

Against the ogre, dragon, what you will;
     His many shapes and names all turn us pale,
For he's immortal, and to-day he still
     Swinges the horror of his scaly tail.
     Sometimes he seems to sleep, but will not fail
In every age to rear up to defend
Each dying force of history to the end.

– W.H. Auden (1936)