Help with this straw hat, please?

The Vintage Vendeuse

The Vintage Vendeuse

VFG Member
Hello!
I'm hoping to find out the probable age of this pretty hat and just how it would have been placed on the wearer's head. The green and yellow ribbons are velvet and the flowers are some type of stiffened fabric. The liner band is silk. There are no labels of any kind.
Is there anything I can do (steam it somehow?) to give new life and shape to it?
Thanks so much,
Donna
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Hi Donna, I don't have a lot experience with hats, but my impression is this was a different style of hat that has been altered either for costume or fashion purposes and that the trims are of varying ages - the tubular fabric strands for example are something I have seen on 1960's pillbox hats which usually show a profusion of them in a pom pom style effect.
The bow attached underneath the brim suggests this would be shown at an angle so it was visible. I'm inclined to say sideways or landscape, as it were. My instinct says this was put together in a later decade in a 1920's style, rather like this hat:
http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/summer-hat-high-res-stock-photography/HQ8112-001

There are others however better qualified than I on this subject so I would be interested to see what they also think about your lovely hat.
 
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Thank you, Melanie!
I'm attaching a few more photos. The crown of the hat naturally wants to be creased to create a triangular effect. (I pushed it out for the first set of photos.) The velvet truly appears original to the hat. The fabric flowers/stems appear to be original as well, from the way they are attached. But I'm no milliner and could be wrong about that.
IMG_0619.jpg IMG_0620.jpg IMG_0621.jpg
 
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Hi,

I am going to come back to this when I have a little more time to look closer. Garden party for sure! The style is very "Gatsby" garden party, that 1928-1931 time period. The asymmetrical shape of the brim, the lace-y straw brim overlay, and the partial lining indicate a period hat. However, it is quite odd for a hat to have both a partial lining AND a grosgrain ribbon around the head size opening. So I am wondering if this hat has indeed been altered. Possibly even the original brim was layered with that lacey stuff at a later date. The crown's straw looks like a fine buntal straw, like a Bali buntal which is very fine quality. The flowers could be original 1920 or 1930s flowers. Those cloth tube stems appear to be starched linen (and the flowers may be also) and that type of tube stem was used in the early part of the century, just became more popular in the late 1930s and 1940s.

What is the circucmference of the inside opening?

I will think about this one a little more. It would, of course be easier to tell if I had it in hand.

Very pretty!
 
Barbara given the tendency of the crown to crease like that and your comments on the straw might the base hat have been a Panama?
 
Melanie,

No, I don't think so. The straw used for the crown does not look like a Panama to me. It looks more like a fine buntal.

But now that I look again, the brim and the crown appear to be made of 2 different types of straws? Donna, is that the case?
 
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