Harvest Millinery - inspiration post

This is going to be a fairly light post with links and images to inspiration sources I have for each of my final ideas. This is not a decision post, because I haven't decided yet!

1. Pseudo-medieval hood(ie)

This image from Rosalie Gilbert has a shape I love. I prefer closed to open hoods, but the buttons would allow me to make a hood in the open style but which can be closed when I want or need more insulation from the elements. She also includes a useful way to draft an appropriate pattern for this style.

Couture Mayah's post from 2011 shows a rather beautiful hood where she trims the hood using a contrasting wool for the dagging at the edges. 

Racaire's Workshop has images of a lovely embroidered hood made in c2009. While the quality of the embroidery I feel is far beyond my current abilities, I am inspired by the use of contrasting the thread and fabric colours. Racaire suggests using chain stitch, which I know and could possibly work with providing the imagery was Very simple.

Notably both the previous two examples refer to the Medieval Tailor's Assistant book, which I already own.

Finally, I was really inspired by the decorations on the second (green) hood shown by Maille is Riveting. The idea of a simple band of decoration, plus the leaf-shaped dagging really got me excited to have a go. 

I think that even if I don't do this for the Challenge, I want to do one anyway before the end of the year! In that situation, I will probably make the shape somewhat different from a normal late medieval hood, and take inspiration from ponchos (a longer back), consider making the front more of a scarf cross-over effect, and dropping the liripipe altogether.

2. Simple Regency bonnet

This is the bonnet pattern that happened to fall into my basket during the recent Black Snail sale:

I could potentially trim the shape with autumnal themed items, like berries and leaves. I'm not sure, however, how autumnal colours will go with the petrol-blue of the dress I want to make.

This hat from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is a nice inspiration for trimming an 1820s hat. Although with the MFA hat being of a different shape to my pattern, I can't be certain how accurate it would be to transfer that style of decoration across to another type of bonnet.

Another 1820s hat, but from the Met Museum, which has a brim somewhat closer to that of the pattern above. This one is even decorated in a style that could be described as almost Autumnal!

For a style closer to the pattern, these images from a fashion plate of 1818 (La Belle Assemblée) show floral, foliage and ribbon decorations. Source: Flickr.

3. Trimmed late Victorian hat

Flipping through the Met Museum's web archive, I can see that straw based hats with wider brims were in fashion (with variations of course) from the 1890s through to the 1910s. That covers the 1890s of the fan skirt alongside the "Edwardian" of the blouse. While this costume would not be historically accurate together, I feel that none of it would be too out of place aesthetically when worn together.

Possible sources of inspiration (All (c) The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

This hat is dated 1892-95 and is made of straw with silk and feathers. The floral top decorations could make a nice historically inspired hat, but this hat itself would be useless in a practical sense because it is angled so as to leave the entire back of the head and neck exposed. No good if I wanted to wear this to keep the sun off.

The Met also have a lovely simple boater from c1890, but I would be unsure whether that would be a woman's hat. That said, in a non-accurate costume, does that matter?

Moving forwards to the 1910s, I found some much more useful images for inspiration. By this decade the hats seem to be angled towards the back of the head again, making them more useful for my modern wear. They are exceedingly extravagantly decorated in some cases, but that might be good for the Challenge, and at the same time, I can deviate if I choose since I'm not intending on creating a true replica.

This 1910s straw hat has a band of what might be velvet underneath the brim, and a large cluster of flowers across the front brim. This style could be an awesome source for a Challenge hat - Straw base, autumnal coloured velvet band, and then a riot of autumnal leaves and flowers with a large ribbon around the crown.

Another straw hat dated c1911 shows how the brim width and crown depth could vary. That's quite useful when finding a relatively inexpensive base straw hat to begin with.

Instead of straw, this c1910 hat is described as being made of cotton, although in a similar shape and weave to the straw ones above. Like the first 1910s straw hat, this one has a band of fabric below the brim, and a wide band around the crown (of the same colour in this instance).

A last straw hat, dated again to c1910, is also made of straw. It's quite a bright yellow, compared to the first two so may possibly be dyed, or even painted? In common with the first and third of 1910s hats linked above this hat has a band below the brim, and another around the crown. As for the first straw hat, the hat is decorated with flowers and leaves although here they are attached onto the front of the crown itself. This hat is also different in that it isn't the simple circular or oval shape, but instead has a downward sweep almost presaging the 1920s cloche hat. It's a rather lovely hat to take as a modern sunhat due to the deep drop of the brim towards the back, which would nicely protect the nape of the neck.

Unfortunately, due to rights restrictions, none of images of the 20th Century hats can be reproduced, so you'll need to look at them on the Met's website.

Harvest Millinery

 I am part of the British Guild of Historical Costumers channel on Discord, which evolved out of the CoCoVid event this summer. They've proven to be fantastic bad influences and I love them all dearly! Our lovely Admin decided to run a Historical Harvest Hat Challenge.

So, the key parameters are:

• Harvest, autumnal, or halloween themed
• Hat or other object worn on the head (bonnets, hoods, tiaras, and so on are OK, for example)
• Historically inspired or historically accurate

I have currently got a few ideas, so this is a rambling post where I try to put my thoughts together into something coherent enough to actually make... For the sake of my hands and reader's brains, wherever I type "hat" below, please view it as a general term equating to "headwear within the competition parameters". So with that said, here are my thoughts, inspiration, and personal parameters.

Endurability 

Yes, "endurability" is actually a real word.

My first thought was that I need whatever I make to have a life outside of this competition. The object made needs to endure beyond this one event. This is both a financial and an ethical consideration. Financial because it seems incredibly, pointlessly, wasteful to make a hat that I won't use otherwise. I don't currently wear any kind of headwear a lot because I am absent minded and lose things all too easily. 

Ethically, I am also uncomfortable with spending time, money and effort on something that is then going to be either pitched in a bin (think schoolkids' Harvest Festival Crowns) or otherwise sat on a shelf gathering dust. This is different from a financial consideration because it's not about whether I have the money, but on the morality of making such a disposable product. I am gently moving myself towards a more renewable and sustainable lifestyle, and one way in which I am consciously doing that is by trying to choose against Fast Fashion. To me, making a totally disposable challenge entry would be utterly contradictory to that!

Practicality

My only thing I wear on my head with any regularity is a sunhat when walking midsummer, because I prefer to neither burn nor get sunstroke! But, a sunhat wouldn't really fit within the parameters of the challenge, so I scrapped that idea from the get-go.

So what else would be practically useful? A medieval hood would be lovely, but I haven't been actively involved with a re-enactment group in over a decade. That means that a re-enactment ready piece of clothing would also be rather wasteful at present - if I start attending again, I can continue to wear my existing green hood, since I'm unlikely to have grown out of it!

What about non-hatlike headwear? I used to wear headbands a lot, but I don't think I've worn one since the 1990s. I stopped wearing them mostly because while I liked the simplicity of brush, band, go, most purchased bands pinch in painfully on my head, and bunch out higher up. I also wear glasses now, and I suspect that the pinching point on a headband would be pretty close to the pinchy point on my glasses when I've been stuck in telecons for hours (right where the ends of the arms will push in if you're stuck wearing over-ear cups for too long). So no, not doing a headband even if they can be pretty and would be fairly inexpensive to make - I'm fairly sure that I'd never actually wear it again!

Ideas

I've currently got a few ideas:

Mediaeval Hoodie

Thinking on medieval hoods set me on a separate thought chain: I spend a fair bit of time up in soggy Manchester. Which rains, a lot. I have two coats - one warm one without a hood, and one light one with a hood. The light one is good for summer squalls, but is quite old and so I'd be concerned about wearing it in sustained or heavier rain. The warm one is a gorgeous Hellbunny Millie one in teal. It keeps my body dry, but my head gets more than a little damp. I currently wear a hoodie under it when I know I'm likely to need a head covering, but that bulks it out and can make it a little uncomfortable, especially if I want to also wear a warm jumper or cardigan in the office or wherever. In other situations I have a scarf that I can fold to wear over my head, but of course that's not terribly waterproof, but is portable and unlike an umbrella, is unlikely to be accidentally put down and forgotten.

What about a mediaeval-style hood or hoodie that I can wear under my Millie coat to give a hood in the winter when I need it but without spoiling its line or making it uncomfortably bulky? It would need to be waterproof, or at least water resistant, but making it in wool would help with that. If it isn't needed to be historically accurate, I can choose a colour of wool that I just like regardless of modern dyes or social status considerations. I could also embroider it, and even alter the pattern to be more "inspired by" than a copy-of type thing. This would be a practical make that I would use, and also not too financially onerous because while 100% wool is expensive, I wouldn't need a hell of a lot for one hood. Even using pure linen, cotton, or even silk for a lining wouldn't be impossible because of the small scale of the item. I've also seen some pseudo-historical ones (SCA accurate, so plausible but possibly no direct evidence) with embroidery and even shaped dagging. That could bring the autumnal theme in beautifully! 

Historical costume - JA Festival

I could also make a Regency bonnet, which I will need to make/buy at some point for my Regency outfit (see my forthcoming post on outerwear). If I brought forward my headwear plans for the Jane Austen Festival, and also made the decorations autumnal themed, then perhaps that would work? I would need to consider colours more carefully as I don't have the dress fabric yet, and my original rough plan for a Regency bonnet involved covering it with the same fabric as used for the dress. Without the final fabric, I would have to be very careful not to have it accidentally clashing. This is even more of a risk because I want to use that very specific greenish-blue that is shown in the Ginsburg and DAR photos. Finding colours that fit with the theme AND which wouldn't clash with the hypothetical dress fabric will be quite difficult.

Historical costume - other eras

What about other eras? 

I could make a general Victorian era bonnet or cap and then build a costume around it later. That would stop the item being wasted but wouldn't stop it gathering dust for a year or more while I find time and a costume to go with it. I think that this would be a fun project, but probably not for this year...

I could maybe look at a late Victorian or Edwardian hat to go with my 1890s/Edwardian style ahistorical ensemble I should be starting soon. That would be appropriate to a specific costume, and I am already planning to make the skirt in either russet or brown, which would harmonise well. On the other hand, I wasn't planning this outfit as being strictly historical, and therefore wasn't really planning on having an appropriate hat to go with it at all.

Current Plans

Currently my plans are bobbling between three ideas.

1. An embroidered and (ivy) leaf-dagged pseudo-medieval hood to wear either with my Millie coat, or a new one since my lovely Millie is a fair few years old and beginning to show it
2. A simple Regency bonnet with autumnal decorations. Simple would reduce the chances of clashing with my final fabric choices, and I could even add trimmings later (e.g. bias ribbon bows) that tie it more closely to the dress colour.
3. A late Victorian hat that just looks cool

The embroidered hood is a gorgeous idea, and I can see the practical uses for it. Downside is mostly a skill based issue - am I able to do the embroidery I envision. Without the embroidery I don't know if I like this idea as much.

The Regency bonnet is something that I have instructions for, and was planning to make, just not this year. Might be pricey, but it just re-jiggs my existing project plan not replaces it.

A late Victorian hat trimming project would potentially be cheap and simple, and I could maybe repurpose the result into a summer hat.

I shall continue thinking on this and then share my project plan once I have my ideas in place. Of course it's entirely plausible that I'm going to try making more than one of these because Why Not??