I'm having a bit of trouble dating this hat. There are no tags. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
This one is hard to tell without handling it. It is such a classic style that spans a few decades. A few questions: Is it wool felt, or a fur felt? Is the veiling silk or another fiber? How is the flower attached? Is it sewn, pinned, or glued to the hat? The flower appears to be a 1960 to 1990s type of millinery flower. If you think it is original to the hat, can you show the leaf up close for me? The headsize ribbon looks like it is coming undone and looks as if is an ill-sewn replacement. Is it hand sewn in, or was it sewn in by machine stitches that are coming apart? If I had to guess, it looks like either an older hat, maybe 1950s, that has been altered with a replaced or repaired inner ribbon, and the flower added at a later date. Or it could be as new as 1990s when this style had a big revival and the hat shops were full of these. The 1970s also saw a brief revival of this style.
I think it could be 40s with the point going in the back. I too think maybe the flower was replaced. This style sat back a little further to be worn behind the full bangs of the 1940s.
If you look at the inside grosgrain ribbon band, the break is at the rounded end of the hat. That indicates the point goes in front as it is being shown the plaster head. The break in the ribbon is always in back of a hat, (well, 99% of the time) unless of course this ribbon has been replaced or re-sewn somehow, which it appears to be.
I think that on the available information, it's impossible to tell if this hat is old or modern. The rose is modern but so could all of the components. I would look at the thread and materials used in construction and determine if it's cotton or poly/cotton or polyester thread used. If this hat was old I would expect the thread to be all cotton, and if you can unpick a bit, it will probably break easily in your fingers. If you can unravel a piece you can do a burn test which will tell you if it has any synthetic component. Any synthetic component will suggest that it is no earlier than the '60s and if it's all synthetic thread (not a mix) then you likely have a modern (post '80s) hat.
