More New Hats From Woodland Farms Antiques

This new hat no. 1 from Woodland Farms Antiques. I'm not ordinarily a huge fan of 1920s cloches, but this I like. The texture combination is hugely appealing. You've got the rough straw and the soft velvet trim. Now the brown....that's a little hard to love, as is the size. It's small. Something in the 20 inch range. It seems most hats I encounter from the 1920s are small. They're either from teens who never wore their hats, and stuffed them in the back of their closets, untouched, for posterity. And all the large-head ladies wore their hats to death. So there's nothing left for the museum folks to archive. Nothing. I'm sort of convinced that teens are responsible for  the dearth of decently-sized 1920s hats. It's their fault.  I mean would you wear this hat if you were breaking out and you had major perspiration problems? This hat, sorry to say, is on the dowdy side. It's the color, really. The hat just sort says, "I'm depressed, I know it, dearie." It just wants to be worn with a matching thick-wool cardigan, a calf-length kick-pleat skirt and t-strap shoes.

This hat, on the other hand, is all flirtiness. I mean, it hides the eyes, which on third thought, could make it a little dangerous crossing a street. Now I'm surprised what good shape this hat is in. A lit cigarette didn't do any damage back in the day? Now, here's another hat that didn't see much use. It's just too much fun not to have a few dings in it, especially to the feathers. No feline saw fit to play with this hat? Unbelievable. My guess that this hat was a gift to a schoolmarm-type from her husband, who wanted his wife to dress up a litle more and go out on the town BADLY. But she didn't acquiese. This hat was not her thing. At all. So she politely accepted the gift, and promptly dumped it...guess where. The marriage survived, barely. But no more hats, although schoolmarm did continue to knit and darn socks for said hubby.

The perfect Sunday hat. This one's in amazing shape too. No apparent moth holes; the flowers are crisp and pretty, just like they might have been plumped with steam yesterday. Actually, that might have happened. How does a hat this cute remain so darling? I refuse to believe that the owner didn't wear it and didn't go to church. I think this hat was worn to teas and special fundraisers, which didn't happen enough for the owner. But she kept it all wonderfully wrapped up in tissue paper in a certain hatbox. When the 1950s hit, this particular style went out of style and the owner didn't wear it anymore, and the hat box fell into the back of the closet. Later, it was unearthed and moved to the attic, where it sat untouched until the 1990s, when the owner passed away, and her daughter was cleaning up the house getting it ready for sale.

Ok. This hat is very Rockette. It's not the kind of hat you wear to show, drinks and dinner. No, it's a bit too kicky for that. And that orange plume! So curly, and provocative. My guess is this is another gift from abovementioned lovelorn husband to prim-and-proper wife. But again, she didn't bite. She couldn't bring herself to wear this hat....which looked so very Vaudeville in her mind. Gaudy! Unwomanly! She was so horrified by the hat, that she couldn't even bring herself to talk about it with her friends. What would they think? Charlie was spending all this money....to hide something he was doing. Something terribly wrong.  She didn't need her friends gossiping, they already yakked enough about the time Dobie Doberman destroyed the geranium bed. So the hat needed go quietly....and be with that other thing.