Woman Reads, Wearing a Bonnet Indoors—Really?

Blacklock, A Quiet Read

Loretta reports:

A short time ago, this image appeared on social media, with a question about women wearing hats indoors while reading. This sort of thing leads to my putting on my deerstalker hat and sticking the pipe in my mouth—but not the needle in my arm—and sleuthing.

My collection of historical dress images includes a goodly number of early 19th century ones in which women are indoors, reading, wearing a headdress. They are usually in morning dress, and the headgear is a cap. Some caps are so elaborate, though, that at first glance they seem to be hats, like the English lace cap on the left in this image.

This fashion plate, of a promenade dress, definitely shows a hat (straw), and the woman is holding a book open. Since she’s wearing a rosary and cross,  she could be in church, and that could be a prayer book she’s holding. Or not. We often see Regency-era fashion plates of women wearing crosses with evening dress: It’s jewelry.

However, the painting in question is not from the Regency era. It comes from the late 19th/early 20th century, during a period of Regency nostalgia. In the early 1800s, Jane Austen was liked in some quarters, dismissed in others, but essentially no big deal. It wasn’t until the 1880s that she became a rock star. At this time editions of her books illustrated by the likes of Hugh Thomson and C.E. Brock begin to appear, and we start to see a Regency revival in painting. The image in question is from this Regency revival/nostalgia era, when artists like Edmund Blair Leighton, Frederick Morgan, Frédéric Soulacroix, Giovanni Boldinim and many others created their versions of the Regency (and Empire) eras.

Kennington, Lady Reading by a Window c 1900

Looking into this later time period offered a little more enlightenment. William Kay Blacklock’s painting is dated circa 1900. In the late 1800s/early 1900s, I did find a few images of women reading, indoors, wearing hats, like this one by Frederick Carl Frieseke, and this one by James Guthrie.

In conclusion, I can’t altogether explain it, but the image might be historically inaccurate only for the era it’s conveying. Or maybe not. Maybe the lady is sitting in the dentist’s office, waiting her turn. Or maybe she's waiting for her boyfriend to come and collect her for a drive in Hyde Park. Or maybe, as author Caroline Linden suggested, "She's getting ready to go out but just wants to finish one last chapter..." What do you think?




If you've seen other images with this reading-indoors-wearing-a-hat theme, please feel free to share.


My thanks to Lillian Marek for sending me on this very interesting and educational investigation!

Images: William Kay Blacklock, A Quiet Read, possibly circa 1900; Thomas Benjamin Kennington, Lady Reading by a Window; Gandalf’s Gallery via Wikipedia.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

A Turban for a Regency Lady

Loretta reports:

On my recent trip to the Victoria & Albert Museum's Textiles and Fashion Department, this turban, and the various accessories* showcased with it, caught my eye. Judging by fashion prints, turbans and toques seem to have remained popular for decades. By the 1830s, they expanded, to match the extravagantly gi-normous hats and bonnets and sleeves of the era.

This one is not so extreme. Dated 1818-1823, it also offers a good example of the difference between a fashion print and the real thing.

As the information page at the V&A explains, British milliners did not know exactly how a turban was constructed. It’s possible that the real thing wouldn’t have been quite such a hit with the ladies, except, perhaps as fancy dress, as in this example.

But milliners did lovely things with the turban concept, adding feathers, jewels, lace, and the sort of floral decoration you can see on the V&A information page. I do suggest you enlarge the images at the site, which include a top-down view showing the level of artistry and craftsmanship involved.

Here’s an earlier Regency era turban, which is a bit more like a beret.

One thing that struck me about the turban on display: It seemed as though it would go well with 1930s style clothing, and probably several other fashion eras. Can we call it timeless?

*You can find out more about the fan here on its V&A page.

Please click on images to enlarge.

Fashion vs Fashion Plates—the Wild & Crazy 1830s

Hayter, "The Music Lesson" 1830

Loretta reports:

I know that many of the fashion plates I put up each month make readers wonder what women were thinking. In this regard, the 1830s plates seem to take the cake. Fashions in the first half of the decade were extravagant and exuberant. Gigantic sleeves ruled. Hair reached heights it hadn’t seen since the 18th century, and the styles were like mad sculptures. I love them, but then again, I have a better idea of how they really looked. Even the dresses we see in museums rarely capture the true look of these fashions: Sometimes they’re missing the sleeve puffs or corset, or the color’s faded, or they lack accessories—or a head, for that matter. If you can’t see the hair arrangement, you get only a partial sense of the look.

A good way to get a sense of these fashions is through portrait paintings. Susan has sent me a number of images that show the vast difference between fashion plates and paintings. “The Music Lesson,” by Sir George Hayter, is a fine example. The famous portrait artist, working in oil, had the tools, talent, and financial backing illustrators did not. He could give his paintings depth and texture. He could show the transparency of lace. He could create the illusion of life and three dimensions, in other words. He could bring to painterly life what magazine Illustrators could only hint at it. 

von Amerling, Countess Julie von Woyna

March 1831 Fashions

While some of the latter were extremely talented, and created quite beautiful plates (more beautiful than many of the abysmal scans we see online lead us to believe), they were not famous artists commissioned by wealthy families to spend as much time as it took to make a splendid painting. It’s all the more impressive, given the limitations, how well these illustrators managed to convey the designers’ ideas.

I do urge you to click on the painting links to get close and personal. You still mayn't love the fashions, and the hair might be an acquired taste—but at least you'll have a truer image.

Images:
Sir George Hayter, Portrait of the Hon. Charlotte Stuart (1817-1861) and the Hon. Louisa Stuart (1818-1891) aka "The Music Lesson." (original in Government Art Collection, British Embassy, Paris). Friedrich von Amerling, Countess Julie von Woyna 1832. Both images via Wikipedia.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

Holiday Gift Ideas for 1913

Gifts for 1913

Loretta reports:

Instead of a fashion plate for the 1910s (yes, we’ve come that far in the year’s survey), I’m presenting a few pages of the Ladies' Home Journal holiday gift ideas from their November 1913 issue.

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t mind receiving some of these myself!

If you’re desperately missing the monthly fashion plate, here’s one from the December 1913 Delineator, with several more pages of fashion following.

Gifts for 1913

Gifts for 1913

Fashions for January 1836

Morning & Opera Dresses Jan 1836

Loretta reports:

This month’s fashion plate is connected to my recently released book, Dukes Prefer Blondes, whose heroine’s clothing styles cover the time between August 1835 and May 1836, when fashion finally begins its shift away from the gigantic sleeves to the less flamboyant style we might think of when we think of “Victorian”: the top of the dress gets smaller, and hair and bonnet styles grow sleeker.

In January 1836, however, The World of Fashion and Continental Feuilletons is still showing enormous sleeves. The black dress on the right gives a nice view of what’s under the opera cloak. One note: the pelerines, which look so stiff in the plate, were rather more graceful in real life, being made of fine muslin.

Dress Description

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

More 18th c. Hats from Colonial Williamsburg

Isabella reporting,

Since everyone enjoyed the white silk hat that milliner's apprentice Abby Cox was wearing in my last post, I'm sharing three more hats inspired by 18th c. portraits and fashion plates and recreated by the Margaret Hunter Millinery Shop in Colonial Williamsburg.

The white hat, above left, features a silk-covered straw brim trimmed with silk flowers, gathered gauze, a coyly trailing silk ornament, and red silk ribbon to tie it all up. You can see the inspiration for this hat in the 1776 print A Bagnigge Wells scene, or, No resisting temptation here.

The extravagantly striped silk hat, right, with a tall crown is similar to hats found in French fashion plates of around 1787. Built on a frame of wire and buckram, it's trimmed with white cock's feathers, but also popular were hats that featured similar plumes made from more exotic (and now considered endangered) vulture  feathers. This hat was recently worn with the appropriately full hairstyle of the era by Nicole Rudolph, who also works in the shop - see her here on the shop's Facebook page. No one said "wow" in the 18thc., but that IS the proper response.

Abby models a hat of black silk taffeta and gauze of around 1781, lower left, that's a close cousin to the white hat she was wearing in my post earlier this week. Black silk seems to have been much more popular for this style of hat than the white, perhaps because it was easier to keep fresh, or simply because it seemed more elegant. (I know it's much harder to photograph, which is why there's a second picture of it, bottom left.) As Nicole Rudolph said, the black silk hat is the Little Black Dress of late 18th c. Britain.

If you were a Georgian lady visiting the shop, which would you choose? I warn you: Abby can be very persuasive behind the counter. You might end up with all three....

Many thanks to Abby Cox!

All photographs copyright 2015 Susan Holloway Scott.