Copies of Store-Bought Hats, 1917

After encouraging readers to make their own hats in July and September of 1917, in November The Ladies’ Home Journal sent a staff member to buy nine fashionable hats and then make her own copies — and compare the costs.

Article “What I Paid for Some Hats and What I Made Them for at Home.” Ladies’ Home Journal, Nov. 1917, top of page 134.

I have included larger images of all the individual hats, later in this post.

The article does not have a by-line, but readers could address inquiries to the Millinery Editor.

“NOTE — If you would like to learn how to make your own hats, the millinery lessons will help you:  “Hat-Frame Making,” “Covering a Velvet Hat,” and “Trimming a Hat.” They cost ten cents each. Descriptions of the hats pictured on this page and a list of the various articles used and their cost will be mailed upon receipt of four cents in stamps to cover the service. Inclose [sic] a stamped, addressed envelope to the Millinery Editor, The Ladies’ Home Journal, Independence Square, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with your request.”

Presumably, the photos show the originals, not the copies….

Hats bought and copied, Ladies Home Journal, Nov. 1917. Center of page 134.

Hats Bought and Made, Ladies Home Journal, Nov. 1917. bottom of page 134.

The purchased hats cost between $30 and $15.  Making them was cheaper, of course, but the Ladies’ Home Journal made it clear that these store-bought hats were not overpriced:

“You may think, upon comparison of these prices, that the profits of the milliner are overwhelming; but in all fairness to the milliner, the figures which signify the cost at which these hats were copied at home do not include the salaries paid to the high-priced designer and the assistants, nor the wages of the dainty model who so alluringly pictures to you how you will look in the hat [!], or those of the saleswoman who serves you. It does not include the rent for the salon in which you comfortably relax while trying hats on, nor the many other expenses incident to the final delivery of the hat.”

Dover’s Women’s and Children’s Fashions of 1917: The Complete Perry, Dame & Co. Catalog shows eight pages of ready-to-wear hats with loads of trimming; the most expensive is $6.49, and most can be purchased for between two and four dollars.  The Ladies’ Home Journal Millinery Editor must have thought her readers would be impressed by the idea of copying a $25 dollar hat for $5.

Here are larger images of the individual hats.

Toque, $25 in a store, and “a very new shape … trimmed with gray vulture.” $30 in store. LHJ, Nov. 1917.

If you can read the words “trimmed with gray vulture” and not think of Neville Longbottom’s grandmother — or Professor Snape dressed in her clothes — where have you been? The position of the feathers reminds me of a skunk on alert….

Two “tam” style hats for women, Nov. 1917. Ladies’ Home Journal.

This hat style, with the brim rolled up on one side, was recommended for “matrons” in July.

The hat on the left is trimmed with a “smart hackle fancy.” Clusters of feathers, sometimes known as hackle pads, can be found online. Here is a large selection of hackles from the Zucker Feather company (a wholesaler.)

The wings on this hat are made of moleskin (a brushed cotton) and velvet — and it cost $12.25 to duplicate at home, more than any of the others.

A hat covered with moleskin and velvet. LHJ, Nov. 1917.

Hats that required special navigational skills — hats which were extremely tall, or extremely wide — were often illustrated. I showed more 1917 hats in a previous post:  click here.

Delineator hat illustrations, May 1917.

Delineator hat illustrations, September, 1917.

Hats in Delineator illustrations, May 1917. Usually a sheer hat would have visible “spokes” supporting the brim.

The hat on the left, below, is quite wide, and has a very high crown, too.

Velvet-covered hats, Ladies’ Home Journal, Nov. 1917.

The “rolled quills” are probably long feathers that have been trimmed to have short barbs. This was not a good time to be a bird (or a woman with an aversion to wearing parts of dead animals), although by 1913 the Audubon Society had succeeded in passing legislation to protect native and migrating birds. (Read a good account here. (“Mama, there’s a woman with a dead body on her hat who wants to see you.”)

Ladies Home Journal, Oct. 1917, 137. Hats for tailored clothes.

May, 1917. Hats from Ladies’ Home Journal.

Hats which use old velvet and fur scraps (and bird parts). LHJ, Nov. 1917.

However, there are plenty of delightful 1917 hats to copy without looking like a taxidermist’s shop.

Hat in ADM ad, Oct. 1917 LHJ.

Cloth-covered hats, Delineator illustration, May 1917.

Delineator, hats illustrated in May 1917. The one on the right uses wide striped ribbon for a band and cockade.

Picture hat with a tassel on a long cord. LHJ, Oct. 1917.

If you were persuaded to make your own hats, and you wanted to learn the milliner’s craft, the Woman’s Institute was ready to help with a correspondence course:

Ad for hat making course from Woman’s Institute, Ladies Home Journal, September, 1917.

 

 

A Mid-Twenties Cloche Hat Pattern: Butterick 5218

Butterick Hat and Scarf Pattern, # 5218, May 1924 Delineator

The vintage cloche hats I’ve seen have usually been either felt or straw, and store-bought. A milliner needs a hat block to pull a felt shape into a cloche, and stitching bands of straw braid into a hat requires great skill (and a specialized sewing machine, unless you do it by hand.) But that did not prevent women from making their own cloche hats from commercial patterns.

Make a Replica Gored Cloche Hat on a Sewing Machine

Two more views of Butterick Hat and Scarf # 5218, May 1924

Butterick sold several kinds of gored cloche hat patterns in the 1920s. The pattern for this one, # 5218 Hat and Scarf, first appeared in May, 1924, and continued to be shown in illustrations in The Delineator magazine for a year, so it was in style through 1925. This hat is for “Ladies and Misses, ” i.e., adults and teens. (None of the magazine descriptions says whether this hat has four, five, or six gores. It looks like four or five with a center front seam to me.) In the winter, woolen fabrics were recommended for the hat and matching scarf; in summer, silk was suggested.

This simple hat could be ornamented in many ways.

You could make it in plaid or solid-colored fabric:

The hat and scarf could both be embroidered to match:

You could embroider just the turned-back brim:

You could embroider the crown:

You could weave together an easy rectangle of grosgrain ribbons, with diagonally trimmed ends hanging free:

The ribbon trim could match the hat color, or contrast with it:

You could use contrasting ribbon trim on the hat and embroider your monogram on the scarf in the same color as the ribbon:

Or you could add purchased trim: a flower in summer, a pom-pom of silk-covered cording or feathers, a ribbon cockade, etc.

Sample purchased trims, not shown on hat #5218

You should be able to adapt a modern four or six gore hat pattern for your cloche; of course, wool or silk will need interfacing to be stiff enough. Milliner Wayne Wichern uses tailor’s hair cloth as interfacing on his custom hats. If you match the grain of the fabric and interfacing carefully, you can use steam and a press cloth to shape the hat around a tailor’s ham.  Unlike synthetic interfacing materials, real haircloth, like silk and wool, is an animal fiber and responds to shaping with moist heat (Fusible interfacing is not recommended! A cloche needs to stretch.)  For inspiration, visit his website. Wayne Wichern Millinery. He is very creative about creating lovely trims from scraps of felt and straw! And he offers classes at his studio in the San Francisco Bay Area, in case you’d like to take a vacation and come home with a hat.

Hats and trims by Wayne Wichern, Milliner, photographed at his lecture at the De Young Museum