Recently Purchased Dior Mink Hat

[Laura Ellen Pate Bridgers]

Hello all. My name is Ellen and I just recently joined here at Vintage Fashion Guild.

I love vintage fashion and accessories. I have been a vintage shopper for quite a while and always take my time in researching and inspecting the pieces that I purchase. Recently, however, I came across something that I haven't seen before.

A few weeks ago I purchased a Christian Dior mink hat from a seller on eBay. The seller estimated the time frame to be within the 1960s, but knowing that many hats are incorrectly dated on eBay I took only it half-seriously. Regardless, I liked the hat and won the auction at twenty-three dollars. Upon receiving it, though, I noticed a few oddities that weren't pictured in the auction.

The Christian Dior label is glued into place. It looks as if a hot glue gun were used to do this.

There is the expected "union made" tag under the inner grosgrain lining, but there is a second "union made" tag glued to the back of the Christian Dior label. This too appears to have been attached using a hot glue gun. The numbers on the two tags are different.

I have attempted to load photographs along with this thread, but the file sizes are too large. I will try to do so again later. In the meantime, I appreciate any help or insight that you may lend.

**I have uploaded a PDF file containing the photos.

 

[Circa Vintage Clothing]

Welcome to the forums, Laura.

It sounds like your hat is from the early '60s but oh, dear - the labels. I look forward to pics but it sounds like you might have met a hat that has been "improved" by adding unauthentic labels. If you load pics it will help, as both labels will help with dating - and they may not match the date of the hat.

Good thing that you got the hat for a good price! Hot glue guns should be kept away from vintage.

 

[Rue_de_la_Paix]

Hello,

Without seeing the hat or the label, I can verify that Dior hats in the late 1950s onward, including the 1960s and 1970s, more often than not had labels that were glued in. This was common for Dior, and for Schiaparelli hats too, as well as other "couture" hat labels. Often the glue was put on in rubbery rounded "strips", which may look a lot like a modern hot-glue gun was used.

So it is not unusual to have a glued in label on a 1960's Dior hat. As a matter of fact it is usually the case.

Of course, that is not to say your hat is, or is not, authentic.

 

[retro ruth]

Hi there, the pdf doesn't show up. For future reference you need to use jpeg format.

Here are the instructions on how to post a photo: http://forums.vintagefashionguild.org/threads/how-to-post-a-photo.42320/

However i've downloaded and saved it as a jpeg for you and uploaded it again. Because of the format conversion it's come out with lots of white space around. Here it is:

 

[Laura Ellen Pate Bridgers]

Thank you, Leonardo. The files were too large even after cropping them on my computer and this was the only method that seemed to work. I'll try your method in the future, though.