Can you help me date these two hats, Please?

onceoza

Registered Guest
The first is a Raymond Hudd hat.....
HuddHat.jpg
HuddHat2.jpg
HuddHat4.jpg


The second one is from Sonnenfelds...a store of the past in St. Louis. I've searched Minnie Pearl hats and can't find anything like it...except of course, Minnie's hat.

MinniePearl.jpg

MinniePearl3.jpg
 
I have the bio of Raymond Hudd (we acquired a couple of examples from his estate), but its packed away at the moment. If memory serves, he started in millinery in the early 1960s and closed up shop in the early 2000s. He was at his most prolific in the 70s-90s.
 
I would say 80's Victoriana on the red hat - if you ignore the feathers it's a very typical 8o's shape underneath plus I've found there was a thing for using lace instead of a finishing tape back then - I have an 8o's dressmaker made skirt that has very similar lace as the binding.
I'm not sure on the age of the straw hat but I agree it looks a lot earlier than the red.
 
Thanks, Melanie. You're probably right, but I did find that using lace and the little violet was a Raymond Hudd trademark.
 
Thanks for sharing more of your hats with us.

The Raymond Hudd looks, to me, to be fairly contemporary, 1990 - 2000, but it could be 1980s as well, maybe late 1980s. The shape is so classic it can be difficult to be more accurate unless you have access to the Hudd files. And I do not have it in hand to examine closer for little clues. The ostrich feather almost looks added to me, but I have no sure way to tell as perhaps it was fiddled with. I say that for 2 reasons. 1. In the back of the hat the plume looks "messy" and out of line, not laid the way a professional milliner would place it. But of course it could be just loose and as changed position over the years. 2. you can see the stitches in the back underneath. These should be hidden or less obvious. I doubt Mr. Hudd would let a hat leave his studio with those messy stitches showing so clearly. That could also have been done later, if the plume got loose and was re-attached by the owner.

I would not use the lace as a clue for dating the hat. Raymond Hudd used a few different laces inside his hats in place of the headsize ribbon, and you find them in 1960s and onwards to 2000 (not sure exactly on the timeline). Jack McConnell did the same thing in his 1960s and 1970s hats, silver or gold lace inside as a band. Sorry to disagree with Melanie, but there is no connection between the lace in your hat and the use of lace as hem binding on 1980s garments.

I see it as falling into the early to mid 1990s Edwardian revival in millinery, with the wide, sloping brim and rolled edges to the brim. Many of the leading milliners started to bring out Edwardian styles in their hat lines at that time. Of course, it is a classic shape, but the brim seems a bit larger than most 1980s hats. With Hudd, who knows! He did whatever he wanted, no rules.

Hudd started making hats professionally around 1950.

The straw hat is darling. I agree with 1950s. Possibly very late 1940s.

Again, thank for sharing your hats!
 
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Not at all Barbara, I didn't know that was a signature trait of his so certainly that must be excluded from the reasoning.
 
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