The last of this year’s 1790s accessories was a remake of the wide-brimmed straw hat I wore to the Hemwick Regency Society picnic at the beginning of the summer. As a last minute hat hack I steamed a curl into the brim of a flat 18th Century bergere, but hats of the early regency were characterized by tall, deep crowns, and my flat bergere really hadn’t nailed it. Since the picnic, I’ve acquired a nice tall straw hat, and a bag of millinery gelatin chips. Time to make a high-crowned regency straw hat!
The shape I wanted was what I’ve seen characterized as a “Spanish” hat – a tall, flat-topped crown and a wide brim that curls up at the front and back and droops down at the sides – a sort of ladies’ interpretation of a gentleman’s bicorne.
Here are a few examples of “Spanish” regency hats in period fashion plates (all images sourced from “The Fashions of London and Paris,” 1801-1808):
A lot of these “Spanish” hats have a shorter brim at the back than at the front. I didn’t feel like trimming the brim down – I wanted the hat to keep its natural straw edge rather than be edged with a binding.
After a slight detour where in unpicking the sweatband I also accidentally unpicked most of the crown –
I plonked the hat over a pot of steaming water, curled it madly fore and aft, then drooped it sideways as far as it would reasonably go.
At the same time I was steaming my tall crowned hat, I was also trying to shape a thrifted seagrass hat.
It was a valuable lesson in how steaming a commercial pre-stiffened straw hat without a hat block can be successful, but that steaming an untreated seagrass blank without one really. Really. CAN’T.
To maintain the new shape of my high-crowned straw hat, I set the gelatin chips and water over a double boiler until I had a peculiar and very viscous mess, and then I painted. First with a paintbrush, then with my fingers- smeary finger painting for the win! The instructions gave a 12:1 ratio (6 cups of water : 1/2 cup of gelatin) but based on a discussion i doubled that. The hat is certainly stiff. Stylish? Style is in the eye of the beholder. It’s good and wide, anyway and a yard or so of moiré ribbon goes a long way to tarting it up!
All of my new regency bits and pieces came out to play at a Hemwick Regency Society Promenade this summer. Note how the neck of my gown is fringed in ruffles! Notice how my enormous and high-crowned regency straw hat protects me from the thin sun of the 49th Parallel! Notice How my silk-and-glass-bead reticule glows in that sunlight, as if even a giant fiery orb 150 million klicks away from Vancouver can recognize just how dang adorable my new reticule is and wants to show it off!
(Ok, in this photo the sun doesn’t do any of that, but I really am rather proud of that raspberry.)
Other Regency bits and pieces: