The Hatatorium:
An Essential Guide for
Hat
Collectors
Copyright 2011
by Brenda Grantland &
Mary Robak & friends
ISBN # 978-0-9847859-0-2
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * * *
Published by:
Brenda Grantland
20 Sunnyside Suite A-204
Mill Valley, CA
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This eBook is licensed for your personal use only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with anyone else, please purchase an additional copy for them. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Please do not infringe the authors' copyrights.
PUBLISHED
BY:
Brenda Grantland
20 Sunnyside Suite A-204
Mill Valley CA
94941
SMASHWORDS
EDITION published December 5, 2011
Corrected first edition
published December 13, 2011
Corrected first edition published
December 14, 2011
Acknowledgement:
Brenda and Mary would like to thank the following hat-loving contributors, whose photo images, expertise, writing and editing skills, inspiration, graphics skills, video production and editing, and technical skills made this project possible.
The images in this eBook, and on the website with which it interfaces, are copyrighted by the person who supplied each image, as indicated below. Anyone seeking permission to use any of those images in any fashion must obtain written permission from the owner of the album from which it originates.
Other contributors to this first edition are:
Denise Dougherty, Philadelphia PA (shopfinelines@gmail.com) - supplied all of the images in the Denise Dougherty Collection guest album in the Hatatorium website and helped considerably with the editing. All of the images in the Denise Dougherty guest album in the Hatatorium website are the exclusive property of Denise Dougherty. All rights reserved.
Jillian Garrett, d/b/a/ The Apothecary Inn, Apothecary Inn, 830 Upper Applegate Road, Jacksonville, OR 97530, http://www.apothecaryinn.com, customerservice@apothecaryinn.com, http://apothecaryinn.blogspot.com. All of the images in the Apothecary Inn Collection guest album in the Hatatorium website are the exclusive property of Apothecary Inn. All rights reserved.
Cindy Keson, All of the images contributed under the name of The Vintage Hat Shop (http://TheVintageHatShop.etsy.com) are the exclusive property of Cynthia Keson. All rights reserved.
Judy Osburn - cover design
Joe Cable - video filming and editing by Joe Cable Video (http://www.joecablevideo.com).
Table of Contents
How to Use This Interactive eBook
Introduction:
- Another Hat Person's World of Hats
Chapter 1. Hats come out of the closet
Chapter 2. Tips for collectors
b. Hat care and do you dare wear them?
f. Moth holes and moth prevention
g. Fluffing up crushed flowers
Chapter 5. How to photograph hats
Chapter 6. Sleuthing the provenance
Chapter 7. Hat materials and manufacturing techniques
l. Beads, sequins and rhinestones
p. Insects, butterflies, miniature animals and inanimate objects
Chapter 9. Collectible milliners & labels
- A to Z buttons (to navigate the alphabetical listing of over 800 milliners)
Chapter 10. Bibliography - suggested reference books & useful internet resources
How to Use This Interactive eBook
As hat books go, this one is revolutionary. It is both a book and a website, and a collection of links to numerous other websites. Another revolutionary aspect is that, even though the book itself is static and will not change unless you purchase a new edition, the accompanying website will continue to grow and expand, as our hat collections grow and as other hat collectors join us and open Guest Albums displaying their hats. As we learn more about the hats in our collections, we will update the captions, adding to the body of knowledge about hat collecting provided by this eBook.
For those of you lucky enough to own the latest generation of eReaders -- Nook Color, iPad, Kindle Fire, Kobo Vox, etc. -- you will be able to instantly access our accompanying website database, containing over 1,000 pictures of hats and materials, etc., just by clicking on links in the book. Many other links lead to fine examples of hats in various museums around the world, and websites of millinery supply sources and other informative internet resources. Some of the links lead to short videos we have created and posted on the accompanying website.
Those of you who have the earlier generation of eReader -- the original Kindle and Nook for example -- you can access the website materials on your computer, using information in the book to find the item on the internet. To keep the book from being filled with thousands of typed out URLs, which would make reading difficult, we only listed the URLs in the text if they were to websites of individual milliners, supply companies, etc. For the internet resources we cite often, you will have to do a little more work to find the accompanying material.
Here are the URLs for the frequently cited websites: Please note that our website is case sensitive, so you have to use lower case, except where we capitalized a letter. That rule may apply to other websites as well.
Chapter 7, Materials, links to http://brendagrantland.com/gallery/materials.
Chapter 8, Hat styles, links to the Hatalog, http://brendagrantland.com/gallery/Hatalog, which categorizes our collections of hats into different albums, organized by styles.
Chapter 9, Milliners, links to http://brendagrantland.com/gallery/Milliner.
Click on the highlight picture for any sub-album, and it opens the album, displaying numerous photos of examples of that style, milliner, etc. Click on the first picture and it opens a larger version of the picture, with a caption which often contains further information about the hat. To go on to the next photo, click the double arrows in the upper right corner of the screen.
You can access the accompanying website directly by going to http://www.Hatatorium.com. That will take you to the Hatatorium home page, which you should check periodically for updates and information about new publications.
When this eBook cites to an example in one of the online museums, use these URLs to find the museum on your computer, and then put the name of the milliner in the search box to find the examples we cited.
Brigham Young Collection in the Mountain West Digital Library - http://155.97.12.155/mwdl.
Indianapolis Museum of Art - http://www.imamuseum.org/art/collections.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art - http://collectionsonline.lacma.org.
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (including the Brooklyn Costume Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art) http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections.
University of North Texas UNT Digital Library - http://digital.library.unt.edu/search.
Victoria and Albert Museum - http://collections.vam.ac.uk.
Introduction:
A love
affair with hats
Since I was a little girl I have adored hats. Spring meant my new Easter hat and it was always something bold and dramatic. In childhood photos I was often wearing a hat.
In the mid 1970s at the University of Alabama, I began collecting vintage hats. A Tuscaloosa thrift store became my favorite haunt. I bought over 40 hats there, a number of which I still have today. The senior volunteer ladies there were amazed that I loved hats in the hatless 1970s. Encouraged by my enthusiasm, they happily brought in their lifetime collections and donated them to the charity thrift store just so I could buy them. Nobody I knew wore or collected hats in the 1970s, but my roommates and I often wore vintage hats (and clothes) to class.
In 1976, I moved to Washington D.C. and stayed until 1992, adding many favorites from D.C. and Virginia yard sales and estate sales. Some of my favorite hat memories are built around those early days of collecting. Through an elegant elderly couple and their charming daughter, I added some new labels and styles from a particularly upscale source. Moving to Europe from their tony D.C. home, these fine folks were selling not only their museum quality furnishings, but when they saw my interest, they also offered me a number of hats they hadn’t planned to sell. What a gold mine that was.
One of my favorite hats, the brown velvet hat with two "made birds" created from real birds of paradise feathers (shown above), was found at Kitty Smith Antiques in Arlington, Virginia in 1979. I've managed to keep it in pristine condition, after 30 years and many moves.
In 1992 I moved to California. I had over 100 hats -- too many to pack. I had to sell over half of my collection. My yard sale brought early bird antique dealers, some of them dealers I had bought hats from in the past. I felt good about letting the hats go to people I knew who appreciated them.
At my new home in California I found the yard sales and estate sales were bountiful sources of hats, but life and work intruded and my time for collecting dwindled. I found it too hard to get up early on a Saturday. My hat collection remained in boxes in the closet, to be opened only occasionally when hat-lover friends visited. We would try them on and laugh, then laboriously wrap them up in tissue paper and nestle them all together in the box.
Until the summer of 2011, I hadn't opened the boxes to look at my early collection in several years -- although I had started collecting more hats again, having discovered the hat collecting potential of eBay.
For my birthday in July 2010 I decided to buy myself a hat from a designer I had recently discovered, Jack McConnell. That birthday wish started a hat buying frenzy. Not only did I collect lots of new hats, but it introduced me to fellow hat collectors, including Mary Robak, who sold me one of my Jack McConnells. This led to a desire to share my new finds and knowledge with my new hat collector friends. I found vintage hat resource books and saw many hats similar to hats in my collection. Recognizing I was sitting on a treasure trove of vintage hats I had owned for years but knew little about, I broke out the boxes of hats to photograph them. It was like having a reunion with old friends. It was too sad to put them away. They sat around in my living room for a week or more, and friends who came to visit were fascinated and had to try them on. After trying them on, they developed an interest in hats and began collecting too. I got the idea of putting the pictures up on my website to share with my collector friends in other parts of the country, and the Hatalog was born.
Those experiences brought me to this project. With the helpful assistance of some hat collecting friends, we bring you what we hope will become a vital reference resource about the wonderful world of vintage hat collecting.
We hope that these pages and the pictures on line will inspire others to collect and wear hats, vintage and contemporary. Why? Hats are good for the spirit. They make people chuckle, smile, make a face or assume a character when they pose for the camera. Hats keep you warm, keep the hair out of your eyes, cover bald spots and prevent sunburn. They give you an air of mystery, confidence, comedy, or whatever you want to portray. Vintage hats carry with them the aura and the secrets of the people who once wore them. You can feel it when you try it on. It's a little bit of history sitting briefly on your head. Isn’t that a good enough reason?
-- Brenda Grantland
Another Hat Person’s World of Hats
When I was 16, I found my first job at Evelyn’s, a hat shop on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago. That was just before Easter 1966. Since then I have been hooked on hats.
In 1974 I shopped for my wedding dress, I discovered that I spent more time and money on the wide brim ecru hat from Marshall Field’s. The hat was my treasured item of that special day.
Decades later I started doing Vintage shows in the nursing home where my mother spent her last few years. It started with quilts, which were too heavy to carry around, too heavy to pass around to the attendees, and too precious to get dirty. Accessories became the focus, finally only hats. The shows became a part of my life. I would go wherever an aunt lived to do a show, which meant Toledo, OH and PA. Locally I did many in the various locations of the continuing care retirement community organization where I have been employed for decades.
Through the years my family gave me books about hats. Research is almost as much fun as collecting hats and showing hats. Christmas 2010 brought me my first iPad and I spent the rest of the day researching old Chicago Tribune newspapers for anything millinery since the 1800s. I’m still researching those newspapers.
People always ask me where I find my wonderful hats. Rummage sales, eBay and occasional estate sales were the sources of most of my collection.
My search often led me to interesting people as well as hats.
One unforgettable experience began with a search for Bes Ben and Raymond Hudd hats for an upcoming hat show. I came across an ad listing “300+ hats… 18 Bes Bens.” I was only able to buy one Bes Ben and two Raymond Hudds, however, I asked the estate sale seller if the owners would lend me the unsold Bes Bens for my hat show later that week. The owner agreed to the loan and when I returned, he showed me a hat style that looked (to me) like the famed Independence Hat sold at the Doyle auction in New York for over $18,000.
The owner (who inherited the hats from his sister, a famous hat collector) knew little of how his sister accumulated so many collectibles, and little about hats. He had been advised the whimsical Bes Bens should be sold for more in a different manner, perhaps auction. He had over 80 hats and he agreed to allow them to be photographed. The research I was able to share with this interesting heir to a hat collector's dream collection inspired him to install a security system. Over time he graciously sold me the “leftover, non Bes Ben hats;” a couple hundred of them.
Another major influence was the famous Chicago milliner, Raymond Hudd, whom I had the good fortune to come to know. I met him after locating him thru his brother Ivan after seeing a response from Ivan on the Chicago History Museum’s blog. Visiting him at his Michigan nursing home for over a year, he inspired me and influenced me to do a show of his hats. He gave me far more joy than he ever knew. As a milliner wannabe and avid hat collector, he has been a great inspiration.
Hats have a way of making connections between people. Christmas 2009, my daughter used her internet expertise to set up a blog and my Etsy store, FrouFrou4YouYou. My blog focuses on millinery and especially Chicago millinery history. My Etsy store is for culling out the collection to make room for more.
At Christmas 2010, I listed a couple of hats on Etsy. In January 2011 I decided to recycle some good items from my collection to be enjoyed by other hat enthusiasts. My first customer was Brenda. That's how we met.
Now we are here, sharing what we have learned from others.
My greatest contribution to this exciting project are research and new additions to the milliner’s list of Chapter 9. We intend to continue expanding this list in future editions.
We hope that you too will enjoy the special spark each of the milliners brought to hat collecting and its history.
-- Mary Robak
Chapter 1: Hats Come Out of the Closet
In the summer of 2010 when Brenda shared with friends the great Jack McConnell hats she found on eBay, they were surprised that she collected hats. "But, you never wear hats," they said. They were right. Although we love hats, we often felt intimidated about wearing our wonderful hats. But no more.
While sharing our collections with friends, we’ve seen the transformations as they try on their favorites. Friends who were latent hat collectors, or who used to wear hats but haven't in decades have begun collecting and wearing hats again. If you haven't tried it, you should. You cannot imagine how good it feels to have total strangers smile and compliment your hat. When they inevitably comment that they wish they had the nerve to wear them, we must say to them:
It is time to take your hats out of the closet and wear them!
Hats are making a mainstream comeback. Recent retro and period dramas featured on television Boardwalk Empire, the Mildred Pierce mini-series, and Mad Men have sent new hat collectors to eBay, Etsy and estate sales looking for vintage hats. In this second Great Depression (or whatever this economic downturn is) hats from the first Great Depression seem particularly timely again. They are so flattering -- and they look fresh and new when worn with contemporary clothes.
Princess Caroline's royal wedding hat created media and internet hat madness. That Philip Treacy hat was typical of his extraordinary wearable art. Hate it or love it, you can't help but notice it. Mention Princess Kate Middleton on television or in a magazine and we look to see what kind of hat she is wearing. That, my friends, is accessory influence.
The newspaper style sections and fashion magazines report that hats are in again. One merely needs to click – or read – NY Times Style section or any fashion magazine to see hats complementing contemporary and vintage fashion. The re-discovery of vintage hats was the theme of the Blondie comic strip on September 25, 2011. See http://blondie.com/strip.php?month=9&year=2011&comic=2011-9-25.
Not only are new hats appearing more often in fashion collections, but vintage hat collecting seems to be on the rise.
In the summer of 2010 when Brenda started collecting Jack McConnell hats, her first three red feather label purchases cost under $100. Within a month or two, prices were rising. The good Jack McConnell hats were selling for $120 or more, with some auctions peaking in the hundreds. Jack McConnell hats began changing hands frequently on eBay. Even in the recession his red feather hats often sell in the hundreds of dollars at auction and on fixed price websites like Ruby Lane, among others. In November 2011 a Jack McConnell red feather that one of our friends was hoping to buy sold on eBay for $620.
During early spring and summer 2011, more and more early 20th century hats were coming up for auction or set-price sale, By mid-summer the eBay’s women's vintage hat category listed over 9,000 items, which we thought was phenomenal at the time. In late November 2011, there were more than 10,500 items listed.
There are fabulous bargains to be had on line these days. We are not sure what is causing so many great collectible hats to be listed all at once, but it may be that many antique and vintage clothing stores are either closing or expanding to online venues. Another influence may be that people downsizing at retirement, or disposing of their deceased relatives' things are recognizing that vintage hats have intrinsic collectible value these days that may fetch better prices on line than they will sell for at estate sales. Television programs like American Picker, Antiques Roadshow teach heirs and family members that items formerly dumped at charity based outlets are now too valuable to donate.
Hat collectors are also discovering the miracle of online buying. What better way to find the hats you love than to shop from thousands of vintage hats available on the internet? There is no need to get up early on Saturdays to be the first in line at estate sales or drive all over town to vintage clothing stores and thrift stores every week -- you can sit at your computer and window shop.
Once you get the hang of it, bidding on eBay is quite fun although it is as addictive as gambling. "Look what I won today!" we say to our hat friends. It is exhilarating to put in the magic number in the last few seconds of the auction and come up the winner. Then you click over to Paypal and the transaction is over without ever having to open your wallet. It doesn't feel like spending money. Then you get to wait in anticipation of a present that arrives in the mail.
In addition to the addictive qualities, there are a few other dangers and pitfalls of buying hats on the internet. Aside from buyers remorse, and hats that don't fit because you didn't check the size, there are the unexpected disappointments offered up by inexperienced and callous sellers. From undisclosed flaws and odors, to receiving a hat squashed into a box too small for the hat -- or even an envelope. These are the occasional downsides of online buying. Nothing can describe the disappointment when the hat you eagerly anticipated arrives damaged by an uncaring seller. However, all these bad experiences help you become a better buyer and, ultimately, a better seller. Later in this eBook we offer our tips and techniques for becoming a smart buyer and a 100% feedback seller.
Fortunately for those of us who enjoy wearing hats, a stunning vintage hat can be purchased for a tiny fraction of the cost of a new hat. With hats being locked in the closet for decades, no previous hat style is passe. Great hats from any era look fresh and new. As 18th Century milliner Rose Bertin said, "the only new thing is that which has been forgotten."
Chapter 2: Tips for Collectors
How to start your collection
When you discover you are a hat lover but know nothing about them, experiment with small purchases. As your knowledge grows, you will find that you will naturally wander into one favorite era, and develop a love of particular milliners. Until that time, be prepared to make mistakes. We all have and those mistakes have made us better collectors and even better buyers. At least we can resell or trade our impulse purchases or style mistakes.
Hats are more fun to collect if you actually wear them. Don’t save them for only special occasions or photographs. One of your first adventures will be discovering which hat styles are most flattering on you. If you don't already know what styles suit you best, go to a hat shop (new or vintage) and try on several styles in front of a mirror. Shop personnel are usually glad to help you find your best style, and most are knowledgeable about the labels and styles. Make use of their expertise.
How to focus your collection
Do you want to focus your collection on a particular era or style? Are there particular types of material you prefer, such as straw, felt, fur, or feathers, or ornamentation you especially like, such as beads, sequins, feathers, bows, flowers, fruit? As you begin to purchase more hats, you will find that your personal taste dictates a hat style. Your wardrobe style is another consideration. Vintage hats go well with contemporary clothes, if they match the colors of your outfit and have the same level of dressiness.
You may find yourself drawn to certain milliners and designers. If you already have a hat you love, find other examples by that milliner. The Milliners Directory in Chapter 9 often links to photos in our own website collection, as well as websites of museums. You may find many different style examples by your favorite designers or milliners.
As you gain experience and settle on styles you like, you will see that you have gained a new vocabulary for your searches on eBay and other online venues. You will have discovered that you now speak "hat," and words like toque, cloche, beret, cartwheel, pillbox have become as familiar as the names of your favorite bands.
There are many excellent hat reference books available at your public library or which you can buy for your reference library. Some of these reference books list approximate values. Studying these picture books is an excellent way to identify your own style preferences while learning what you may have to pay to get a hat of that caliber. But you will be pleasantly surprised to find the amazing bargains to be had on line if you put in the time and effort to research before selecting your purchases or placing your bids.
We suggest you build your own reference library if you intend to collect or sell vintage hats. We offer a bibliography listing those we have found most helpful.
Size matters
To determine your correct hat size, use a cloth measuring tape to measure around your head about an inch above your ears. Women's U.S. hat sizes generally conform to the inner circumference of the hat in inches. The average hat size for adult women is about 22 inches.
Men's hat sizes both in the U.S. and Europe measure in single digits plus fractions -- for example, 7-1/4 or 7-3/8. The hat size chart at the end of this book will help you convert head or hat measurements into standard men's hat sizes. The fact that a hat measures 7 and 1/4 inches diameter front to back inside the brim does not mean it is a size 7-1/4. Some online sellers will claim it does, but that measurement is not helpful in determining if a hat will fit.
If you own a hat that fits comfortably, check the size tag or take a tape measure and measure the inner circumference at the hat band. If you don't have a hat that is a perfect fit, go to a hat store and try them on until you find one that fits comfortably and note the size.
No matter what your size, try on a hat before purchasing if you can. If you are buying online, request the exact inside circumference measurement if one is not listed. Do not accept any listing that states a measurement is “about 21 inches.” One quarter of an inch too small and you will not be able to wear the hat -- unless you can stretch it, which is not always possible.
Sometimes the size listed on the tag is not the same size as the inner circumference. Manufacturing variations may account for the discrepancy. Or the milliner may have intended that the hat sit higher up on the head. But if you are not comfortable in, or don't look good in, hats perched atop your head, it doesn't help that the hat is theoretically your size. Many online sellers do not accept returns for items that do not fit. So don't buy it unless they give you the measurements. We discuss buying tips in Chapter 3.
Hat care
and do you
dare wear them?
We believe collecting hats is more fun if you enjoy them. Unless you collect only museum quality examples from the distant past, you want to wear most of your hats, some only for special occasions. Common sense dictates when to wear your fabric or embellished hats and consulting the weather report is always a sensible guide.
What to do if a hat gets wet
"What do hats fear most?" asked villain Horatio T. Hoodoo, of his "bad hat" minions. "Weather!" he exclaimed. From Lidsville, a 1970s children's television show, episode 1, first aired 9/11/1971.
Rain and snow can ruin a vintage hat, especially one with feathers, fabric or fur. Water may dissolve the glue adhering the feathers or shrink or permanently stain fabric hats causing irreparable damage.
If a hat does get wet shake the water out and carefully pat it dry with a towel. Do not use a blow dryer or put it near heat if it has fur or feathers.
Once you have removed as much moisture as you can by shaking and blotting, put the hat on a hat form or a wig head. If you don’t have a hat form or head, stuff it with plastic bubble wrap to keep the sides of the crown extended. If the brim is naturally curved at the bottom, put extra bubble wrap or some object under it to keep the brim from flattening. Once the hat dries it may recover completely.
If feathers come off in the process lay them out to dry and then glue them in place once the hat is completely dry. Use a white craft glue that is made for gluing felt or fabric, so the bond will be firm but flexible. You can purchase craft glue in arts and crafts stores or millinery supply stores online.
Cleaning: Five Tools
When a new purchase arrives, your first impulse will be to try it on. It's best to resist that urge. Remember that many of the vintage hats you purchase have been in some sort of storage before coming home with you. Hot attics and damp basements, mildew, fireplace and cigarette smoke, pets and other household critters all leave residue. Packed away in a hat box for decades, it will have residue of deteriorated tissue paper or other storage materials. Even sitting on a shelf at a vintage store, a hat will pick up dust. Therefore, we recommend that you clean the hat before you try it on.
Our recommended cleaning toolbox includes:
(1) a can of compressed air
(2) a loopy nylon pile link remover brush from the dollar store
(3) a small sponge
(4) a few assorted unused paintbrushes
(5) a tape roller lint remover.
Cleaning can be destructive to certain hat materials, especially if the hat is old and deteriorating. Start with the least intrusive method and if that does not solve the problem, move on to more serious methods.
We caution against using steam to bring a hat back into shape or to remedy a stain; it may damage the hat. Try the less intrusive methods first, and use steam only after you have read carefully the section on steaming a hat, below.
If the hat has undisclosed defects such as makeup, discoloration, stains or odors, you should decide whether you can remove the stain or odor, or tolerate the defect, and if not you contact the seller and return the hat. Act quickly while your Paypal guarantee is still in effect. Often we have purchased hats that, though dirty, were salvageable and enough of a bargain to keep and clean them. Before you make such a decision, though, you should contact the seller and communicate the problem you observe with the condition (if it is undisclosed) and give them an opportunity to remedy or cure the problem. Every seller has made legitimate mistakes and many will do what they can to make it better. Of course if they disclosed that the hat is dusty or has an odor or stain, you have assumed the risk and cannot return it and get a refund unless the seller agrees.
Be careful though, efforts to remove a stain or steam the hat back into its proper shape may damage the hat. If you aren't sure you can correct the defect, communicate with the seller first, because they may refuse to give you a refund if your attempt to cure the defect goes awry.
Cleaning Challenges and Techniques
An example of a challenging cleaning task is Brenda's Edwardian era horsehair wide-brim hat that was so deteriorated that she almost regretted the purchase. The hat presented a cleaning nightmare. Opening the box triggered an asthma attack. Although aware of its age and deterioration when bidding, the construction and materials were so antique that it seemed worth the purchase just to study the hat. The hat frame was made of braids of web-like lace woven out of actual horse hairs, sewn in a spiral like a straw hat, with a wire frame. You can see through the whole hat. Taking the project outdoors, and standing facing away from the wind, the can of compressed air was used to blow off the dust. The air blasts cleared the dust from the horsehair lace without damaging the horsehair, but the cloth flowers and the ancient ribbon bows inside the crown were so deteriorated they ultimately disintegrated. There was no possibility that harsher cleaning methods could be used to further clean it without destroying it. Disappointed, but not defeated, we took photos lots of photos (which allow all of us to study the unique materials and construction methods of a century ago) and packed it away carefully in a box stuffed and wrapped in tissue paper. That hat in the Hatatorium website, in the section on Hats by Era, under Edwardian hats.
If the least intrusive method did not do the job, choosing what to try next requires recognizing which elements don't or shouldn’t mix. Don't use steam or a wet cloth if the hat is made of fur, paper straw, sequins, feathers, or velvet. If glue holds feathers or other trim on the hat, steam may dissolve it. If plastics or synthetics are in the trim or fabric, steam may melt or disfigure them. Hand painted flowers or other hand painted areas may not be color fast. Always test a small area first. Don't use a brush on satin or any surface that might scratch.
A clean dampened (and then wrung out) sponge is our tried-and-true way to clean most straw or felt hats. We recommend wiping down every hat on the inside, even if it is lined, the hat band area to the edge of the brim where makeup or hair care product residue may remain. Fabric or other soft material hats can sometimes be turned inside out to wipe away dust or lint in the seams. Use your best judgment about turning hats inside-out. Dusty felt, velvet or straw hats respond well to cleaning with the damp sponge, in our experience. We recommend that you leave the hat in a warm place to dry completely. If the hat is damp at all, put it on a hat form or stuff the crown with bubble wrap while it dries.
Makeup residue or stains are grounds for returning the hat if the defect was not disclosed. On some materials a makeup stain can be satisfactorily removed with a damp sponge and a little liquid soap -- but on some fabrics such cleaning is risky. Try it first with a well-rung out sponge, on a spot that would not be visible while the hat is worn, and if the color does not run, try a little more moisture.
If the makeup is on felt, it might be easier to try brushing it off the felt first, so the water does not dilute the make-up and cause it to spread. Sometimes a fine grain sandpaper can be used on felt to take off a minute layer of felt that is stained, but if the felt has a plush finish the sandpaper will cause a smooth area.
If water alone does not remove makeup residue, put a tiny drop of liquid hand soap in your palm, work it into a lather, and then apply a little of the lather to the spot and gently rub it between your fingers. Wipe it off with the damp sponge and if some residue remains, repeat the process.
Be careful not to get the hat too wet. Water on the spot will spread out to adjoining areas which may not be color fast. Especially do not get an area wet that has a wire in it, for the wire may rust and cause rust stains.
Reshaping
"What is the worst thing you can do to a hat?" asked villain Horatio Hoodoo. "Crush it!" he exclaimed. Lidsville, episode 2.
Hats are fragile. Straw, felt and velvet have memory. Once they have been crushed or dented, the straw or felt may remember the dents and bends, and never completely recover its original shape.
Although they do not always work, there are ways to reshape hats. We caution that you should be careful not to damage the hat in the process.
Moistening a felt hat or natural straw hat and then placing it on a hat form and leaving it to dry slowly often does the trick of reshaping a hat. If you are very careful you can moisten it by steaming with a steam iron or tea kettle, held some distance away from the hat. A less risky method is spritzing with a spray bottle filled with water or gently going over it with a dampened sponge, being careful not to ruffle any feathers or damage any trim. If you don't have a hat form, stuff it with clean bubble wrap. If the hat has a complex crown with dents, the process is a little harder and requires careful stuffing and pinching and modeling -- unless you happen to have a hat form with the proper configuration of crown. Watch our video to see how we restored the hat pictured above. See http://www.brendagrantland.com/Hatatorium/uncrush.html.
But before you try this, beware -- the moisture could ruin some materials. Generally straw hats respond well to moistening and reshaping, but some straw hats are woven of paper straw and it will destroy them. If you aren't sure whether it is paper straw or grain straw, don't get it wet. Just stuff the hat or put it on a head stand and maybe apply gentle heat with a blow dryer. If it is made of cellophane straw, avoid heat completely.
Blow drying is a way to warm up a hat and may help in reshaping a hat if you prefer not to use steam because of water soluble trim, wires, glue or other hazards. Place the hat on a rigid hat form that has a tight fit, or stuff the hat with tissue and heat it up, and then leave it stuffed for a few days.
If you have tried all of the above and the hat does not resume its original shape -- or if you are afraid to try any of them because of fragile materials -- carefully stuff the hat with tissue paper, tightly filling all the nooks and crannies. If you have difficulty keeping the tissue paper inside the crown, roll sheets of tissue paper into long cylinders and coil them around the outside of the crown, then stuff a wad of tissue paper in the center.
Once you have tightly packed the hat with tissue, put it away in a box for a few months.
Pressing a veil between layers of waxed paper will stiffen it. Be sure to use a warm, not hot iron. Similarly ribbon trims that have been creased or wrinkled can be pressed with a hot iron. If the ribbon or bow is wrinkled in a place that is too close to the hat to reach with an iron, this trick may work, but only if the wrinkle or crimp can be flattened against the crown. Cut a long strip of thin cardboard (like poster board), wide enough to cover the ribbon and long enough to reach around the crown and lap over. Wrap the cardboard around the crown, flattening the wrinkled or improperly creased ribbon with your fingers, so that the cardboard holds the ribbon flat against the crown. Tape the ends of the cardboard together so that the cardboard forms a tight band around the crown. If the crown is soft or flexible you will need to stuff the crown firmly before you do this, so the cardboard has something to press the ribbon against. Then pack the hat away for a few months. This method worked to remove the wrinkled and crimped ribbon in the Lilly Dache doll hat. Here is hat still wearing the cardboard band. Here is the after picture, which looks freshly ironed, although it was never touched by a hot iron or steam. (These three pictures are in the website under http://brendagrantland.com/gallery/Repairs.)
Bad odors
Bad odors are grounds for returning a hat if undisclosed. Often sellers use a broad disclaimer in their listings suggesting that vintage have their age “issues” including musty smells. You can completely avoid these sellers because you might be assuming the risk of a bad odor. Or you can ask specific questions about the item up for bid. When hats arrived with undisclosed foul odors, we have had success getting the seller to agree to a return and refund.
For those smelly hats you want to keep, here is a trick we learned by experimenting with a hat that reeked of smoke and some other foul odor, possibly mildew. It was a black straw hat, with velvet trim. We decided to clean it with Natures Miracle, a product designed for removing pet urine stains and odors. The product worked very well in removing pet urine stains and odors from Persian rugs without damaging them, and seemed worth trying on this black straw hat. The hat would not have been useable unless the odor was removed so there was no risk in trying. We dampened a clean soft cloth with Natures Miracle and tested it on a small portion of the straw interior of the hat. It did not cause the color to run. Then, being careful not to touch the velvet, we wiped the straw hat down inside and out. It took several clean cloths to wipe it down, because a large amount of residue (probably mildew and smoke residue) was caked on the straw. It cleaned and brightened up the straw immen'sely, removing layers of grime and residue and restoring the sheen to the straw. It worked great and removed most of the odor with one thorough cleaning. The hat was left out to air for two weeks or so before being wrapped up for storage. Most of the smell was gone by the time the hat was put away.
Another product we have tried is Febreze. Again we tested a small amount of the product first on an inconspicuous spot to make sure it would not harm the color or finish. To avoid directly spraying the product on the hat, we put the hat on the floor and sprayed the Febreze into the air above the hat, so that most of it evaporated before landing on the hat. At first the Febreze masked the smell with its own flowery smell. We left the hat out to air for a month before wrapping it in tissue paper and putting it away. After a month the bad odor and most of the Febreze smell had dissipated enough to wear the hat.
Wiping a hat with a scented fabric softener sheet has about the same effect as Febreze. That might be a better alternative for hats made of porous materials that you are afraid to get damp. We do not recommend leaving a fabric softener sheet in the box with the hat when you package it away. The chemicals might have a negative effect on the straw, fabric or other materials or cause discoloration.
Someone suggested wrapping a piece of charcoal and putting it inside the box along with the hat. Charcoal reputedly absorbs odors. This is worth a try because it won't add its own smell. Be careful to put several layers of tissue paper between the hat and the charcoal.
Avoid getting perfume or hair spray on hats. The products deteriorate over time and may damage or discolor the fabric.
Moth holes and moth prevention
Clothes moths love to feast on felt or wool, and will also nibble on and destroy other animal products commonly used on hats: silk, fur and feathers.
If a hat has moth holes, don't buy it. Moth holes may mean moth eggs. You don't want to introduce moth eggs to the rest of your collection. If a hat arrives with moth holes that were not disclosed, send it back. But if you really, really love the hat enough to forgive a moth hole or two, be sure to clean it thoroughly to remove any moth eggs that are left on the surface, especially in the moth holes and crevices.
Just to be on the safe side, pack the moth eaten hat in a box separate from your other hats. Do not use moth balls in the box with the hats. Moth balls are toxic and you will never want to wear the hat once it has absorbed the noxious chemical smell.
A better idea is to pack cedar blocks in the box with your hats. Cedar is a non-toxic moth repellant and has a pleasant woodsy aroma.
Fresh lavender will also repel moths, without damaging the hat.
Hatpin holes
Hatpin holes are another problem. It is unfortunate that hatpins were so widely used for so long, because they do leave holes and dents in hats, and they may rust or corrode. It is best to take hatpins out of the hat before packaging them away for storage. When a hat comes with a hatpin in it, and the hatpin is obviously part of the hat's provenance, remove the hatpin and tuck it into some unobtrusive part of the hat where it does not leave exposed holes in the felt or straw. One good place is between the ribbon outer hatband and the crown.
Sometimes removing the hatpin means leaving exposed holes that will be obvious, such as in this satin hat with velvet tipped hatpins, so it is better to let them be. When hatpins have corroded there is no way to get them out without damaging the hat. Those should be left in place. Another remedy is to replace those old hat pins with a piece called a “jabot.” It is a larger pin that looks somewhat like a rather ornate hat pin but one end screws into a cylinder with no sharp ends exposed.
Fluffing up crushed flowers
Several times we have received hats with crushed flowers. Recently, the seller included a note saying the flowers could be fluffed up by steaming. Generally we do not recommend steaming silk flowers on a hat. Although they may respond just as the seller said, the dampness from the steam could cause the wires in the silk flowers to rust and cause stains. Also, if the fabric is a synthetic, or the stems are wire covered in tape or paper, the steam could ruin them. Also some nosegays have paper forget-me-nots mixed in with the silk flowers, and the paper flowers will be destroyed. If the leaves are made of silk, satin or velvet glued to leather or another layer of fabric, the steam could ruin the bond.
Before even attempting to steam silk flowers, try a less intrusive method. Use a damp sponge to very carefully wipe off each individual petal of a silk flower, removing dust and residue. The sponge should be damp but not wet. Slightly dampen each petal, carefully avoiding the wired stems. While the petals are damp, gently shape them with your thumb and forefinger to conform to the proper shape before you dampen other petals. Leave the hat to dry in a warm sunny spot, and the flowers will generally fluff up very well without steam. During one such cleaning of white silk flowers, some of the petals had small dots of what appeared to be rust. We used a tiny amount of soap on the sponge and carefully massaged the petal between the fingers, then carefully wiped off the soap, and it removed the spots completely.
Repairing hats
The extent to which you should endeavor to repair a hat that has some damage, such as missing trim, rips, tears, damaged feathers and other damage, is a matter of personal taste. If the only thing wrong is a seam coming unsewn or loose trim it is usually a simple matter to repair it, and the repair will likely never be noticed.
If you sew an embellishment back on, try to find matching color thread and use tiny taut stitches hidden as much as possible from view on either side. Hat books recommend buying thread that is natural cotton or silk which can be found in fabric shops or online.
Some people are purists and will not make any repairs beyond sewing or gluing a loose seam or trim. Like any other antique, restoring an antique hat can sometimes lessen its value. However, in prior decades, women trimmed old hats with new flowers, feathers, pins, etc., so the vintage hat you bought may already be an amalgam of materials from several different years or eras. If you buy a hat from the 1930s and the flowers on it are obviously more modern, that might be some amateur collector's rehab. You can simply remove them and you'll have a better collectible hat. If you want to replace them, try to find silk flowers and trims of the same vintage.
Veils are the most likely trim to be damaged. For those of us who don't care for veils and are not likely to wear a hat with a veil, remove it, using tiny scissors and tweezers, leaving no evidence that the veil even existed. Then enjoy the hat as a veil-less creation.
There are places to buy replacement veils. See chapter 10 under internet resources.
Seed beads and bugle beads are widely available in an amazing variety of sizes and colors at bead stores and craft stores, so look there first before giving up. Because beading is such a popular hobby today, most medium sized cities have bead stores where you may find identical beads, or beads close enough to substitute. Some even have vintage beads. Those bead stores may also have other trim that you might want to pick up to add to a hat to hide other blemishes -- unless you are a purist like me. Warning: if you love hats you'll probably love bead stores as well, and it may cut into your hat collecting budget. So beware.
Restoring feathers
Feathers are another trim that reputedly can be fluffed up with steam, even on the hat. Albrizio's book on millinery recommends steaming feathers to make them regain their fluff and sheen before using them to construct a hat. Since there are no wires to rust, and Albrizio is a recognized authority, it is probably safe to steam feathers. But if the feature is still attached to the hat, proceed with caution. An allover feather hat may have water soluble (or heat soluble) glue holding the feathers to the hat. Steam could make them come off.
Inspect the hat thoroughly to make sure steaming won't hurt the surface of the hat or other trim. If the hat body is made of cellophane straw or paper straw, or if there are wires in the brim or in other trims, or if it has glued on rhinestones or beads, don't use steam. If heat or moisture might cause a problem, try cleaning the feather gently with a damp sponge. Albrizio also advises that natural oil from your hands can be used to restore the sheen to a dull feather, by stroking the fronds of the feather between the thumb and forefinger.
When a hat is trimmed with feathers, it is worth the effort to repair the feathers if possible.
If the feather stem is bent, or even broken part of the way, you may be able to repair it by carefully applying a dot of craft glue to the bent or broken area of the stem. Use a toothpick, and make sure the glue goes into the area of the crack or break. Then turn the hat so that the feather is hanging straight down, letting gravity pull the feather stem straight. If it does not instantly go back into alignment, gently nudge it back into alignment once or twice, immediately after applying the glue. Don't try nudging it after the glue has started to set or it might break. Leave it untouched in that position for a several hours or more.
If a feather pad has come apart on a hat, gently remove the feather pad, and ever so gently remove any loose feathers from the felt pad. Then using a toothpick or small artist's paintbrush, paint a thin coat of craft glue on the felt pad then replace the feathers, one by one, reconstructing the pad just the way it was originally constructed. If you are missing some feathers, there are feather distributors on line that have a wide assortment of feathers of many types. See Chapter 10 for a listing of feather websites we have found. If your hat is missing feathers of a common type, such as pheasant, guinea, ostrich, marabou, coq, or hackle, you should be able to find a matching replacement feather and no one will ever know you have replaced it. If it is an older hat, with feathers of a different type than the ones commonly sold today you may find a vintage feather from eBay or even salvage feathers off a damaged hat.
Storage & display
Back in the late 1970s one of the authors (who will remain nameless) had the brilliant idea of putting nails in the wall and hanging each hat on its own nail. It made an impressive display, but after a few months in the heat and humidity, the hats started looking bedraggled. House dust soon covered the hats. Moths attacked the felt and feathers. Some were so destroyed they had to be discarded. The ones that survived were carefully cleaned and packed away in tissue paper, and stored in dark dry closets. Some of those hats survived intact over thirty years and are now displayed in the Hatatorium website.
Displaying hats in the open air is not a good idea. It is good to air them out when you first get them especially if they have a musty smell or if they smell of smoke, but they should not be left out for more than a few weeks. Displaying them in sunshine is also a bad idea. Sunshine fades them and dries out feathers and glue. Fur pelts get brittle and come apart at the seams.
A glass storage case -- such as Brenda's Chapeau Towers -- is the ideal way to display vintage hats while protecting them from dust and damage. If you use glass display cases, place them in an area where they are not exposed to direct sunlight. Not only will it fade your hats, but direct sunlight will heat up the case and cook your hats, drying out glue and feathers.
Another great way to display hats is to photograph them and then pack them away in boxes wrapped in acid-free tissue paper. You can post the photos on sites like Photobucket, Facebook or Flickr where they can be viewed by friends. If you don't care to share them with friends, just leave the images in the pictures directory on your computer. Either way the hats can be safely packed away, yet you can still visit them any time you want without having to take them out of their boxes.
If you are on Facebook, we invite you to join our Mad Hatters Society group. It's free. Send a request and we'll add you to the group. It is really a lot of fun to share pictures of our hats with other hat lovers. It's also a great way to learn about vintage hats from fellow hat collectors with different tastes and expertise. Here is the Mad Hatters Society link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/260624633971266/.
Chapter 3: Tips for Buyers
One day in September 2011, eBay's category Fashion/Vintage/Accessories/Women's Hats had over 9,000 listings. Amazingly, that number had increased to over 10,500 listings by November 13, 2011. On November 11, 2011, Etsy had 16,834 listings in its vintage hat category and Ruby Lane had 1,924. Granted these figures count an untold number of listings for hat trims and feathers, hat blocks and display heads -- but many of the listings are for lots -- even large lots -- of hats. Additionally, some vintage hats are listed in eBay's category for non-vintage hats (Fashion/Women/Accessories/Hats). That generic category had over 98,000 listings on November 11, and a word search of that category for "vintage" turned up over 3,000 results.
Clearly the internet is teeming with vintage hats for sale. Truly it is a buyer's market these days.
With so many hats in the the available inventory even the most avid hat collector can't keep up with all the listings. When no one else sees it, a great hat can slip by under the radar. On the rare but wonderful occasions when no other bidders are competing against you, great hats by famous milliners can be picked up at auction for the opening bid price. On the same day you pick up a sleeper like that, a comparable hat by the same milliner may sell for hundreds of dollars after heated bidding because the hat garnered the attention of Collectors Weekly or one of the other websites or otherwise came to the attention of avid hat collectors.
This glut may not last long. Hat collectors will soon learn about these great bargains and join in the feeding frenzy.
We believe high quality collectible hats can be solid investments, especially when you buy at prices lower than they have been in decades. Even the hatless decades did not deter hat enthusiasts from collecting vintage hats. Collectible vintage hats had established a relatively stable market value for ten years or more before the recession began, as evidenced by prices listed in hat books. See Chapter 10.