Butterick Tam-o’-Shanter pattern # 3157. Pictured in Delineator magazine, March, 1924.
1920s Alternatives to the Cloche Hat
Although the cloche is the definitive “Nineteen Twenties” hat style, there were alternatives – including wide brims, turbans, “very small hats” (almost brimless), and the Tam-o’-Shanter. (For more about the history of Tams, click here.)
Other Paris hat styles — besides the cloche — for May 1925. Delineator magazine.
Above, from left to right: 1) “a wide hat of lacquer-red straw,” 2) “a turban-hat of twisted ribbon,” 3) “the very small hat turned up at the front or back.”
Two more “very small hats” from the article on Paris styles, May 1925. Delineator magazine.
Tam-o’-Shanters for Women and Girls, Mid-Nineteen Twenties
Butterick Tam-o’-Shanter pattern #5458. Delineator, September 1924.
A very good article about twenties hats, “1920s Hat Styles Beyond the Cloche,” by Vintage Dancer, mentions that the tam was usually worn by young women and girls, but it also appears occasionally with rather dressy outfits on adult women:
Dressy Tams on Women, from Delineator magazine, 1924 & 1925.
Butterick’s tam-o’-shanter patterns were usually sized for “Ladies, Misses (i.e., ages 14 to 20), Children and Girls.” Tams could be made from wool flannel, silk velvet, satin, cotton velours, taffeta, and other elegant fabrics. Although a pom-pom was the traditional trim, tassels, ribbons, feathers, embroidery, jewels, and other ornaments decorated 1920s tams for women.
1920s Tams decorated with jewels, embroidery, and ribbons. Delineator magazine.
Magazines usually featured tam o’shanters in fall and winter, but this summer tam appears to be made of lace or, possibly, popcorn-knitted or crocheted silk ribbon:
A large summer tam worn with a sheer dress trimmed with drawn threadwork. June 1926. Delineator magazine.
The Tam: Simple to Sew
A basic tam-o’-shanter shape; Vogue pattern 7980, dated 2004. The pattern calls it a beret.
Butterick offered many Tam-o’-Shanter patterns during the 1920s, perhaps because the tam was easier for a home stitcher to sew than a cloche (although four- and six- gored cloche patterns were also sold.) In fact, I have come across so many 1920s Tam-o’-Shanter patterns that I can only describe a few in this post.
In an era when women and men rarely left the house without wearing a hat or cap, the tam-o-shanter was a quick, un-fussy hat to put on for the trip to and from school, or to the local shops. A schoolgirl or telephone operator could take it off and hang it with her coat, and there was no danger of a tam-o’-shanter being crushed; they looked crushed to begin with!
A Tam-o’-Shanter pattern from Butterick, March 1924.
Butterick Tam-0′-Shanter Patterns, 1921 to 1925
These three tam patterns were featured in Butterick’s Delineator magazine in 1924 and 1925. Their numbers, in the three- and four- thousand range, indicate that they were first issued before 1924, but they were still being included in pattern illustrations for 1924 and 1925. Although some Butterick hat patterns are for children or girls only, these tams were intended for ‘Misses’ (ages 15 to 20) and adult women (“Ladies”) as well.
Butterick Tam-o’-Shanter Pattern # 3157
Butterick Tam-o’-Shanter pattern # 3157. Pictured in Delineator magazine, March, 1924.
Three views of Butterick Tam pattern # 3157. April to June, 1924. It can be worn with the band tucked in (left) or showing (right.)
These full-length pictures show them with appropriate daytime clothing:
Butterick Tam pattern #3147 as illustrated in April to June of 1924. Delineator magazine.
Butterick Tam Hat Pattern #4886
Butterick Tam Pattern # 4886, issued late 1923; illustrated in Delineator in March 1924 (L) and January 1925 (R).
The two-headed pin which goes through so many 1920s hats is called a “cliquet” or scarf / jabot pin. The Cartier and America Exhibition in San Francisco included several superb art deco examples. You can see some of them here, at a Yahoo image search.
Butterick Tam pattern #4886. All were illustrated in April 1924. Delineator magazine.
Here are the full-length illustrations of the outfits tam #4886 was shown with:
Butterick tam pattern #4886 as worn in April, 1924. Delineator magazine.
Butterick Tam-o’- Shanter Pattern # 4898
Butterick Tam pattern # 4898, issued in late 1923, but illustrated in 1924 and 1925. Delineator magazine.
Although all four of these illustrations show girls or teens, pattern #4898 was sized for Girls, Misses, and Ladies.
Sidelight: The girls on the left have a hair-do associated with Mary Pickford, (“Little Mary”) the silent star who played child-women well into adulthood. She played Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm the year this picture was taken (1917), and Pollyanna in 1920, when she was 28 years old. She finally bobbed her hair in 1928. Mothers who were fans of Mary Pickford movies were probably responsible for their daughters’ long, long curls in 1925.
Mary Pickford in an Ad for Pompeian Hair and Face Massage Creams. 1917.
Purely decorative hat pins — Cartier called them “cliquets” — appear on 1920s tams as well as on cloches, or piercing the turned-up front brim of a larger hat. 
Here is Tam pattern 5402 illustrated on young teens:
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