Big hats!

Recently, I have been looking for a hat to trim with silk flowers and ribbon to wear with my 1910's blouse and skirt. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find one I like. However, I have found lots of lovely hat pictures! :) I wish people wore more hats these days. It really completes your outfit. The following are some of my favorite pictures. (In the captions are comments or all the information I know about the picture.)

This is my ideal hat. (And that dress isn't bad either!)

1909

I like the hat on the left especially.

Isn't it grand? *happy sigh*

 I have never worn a hat this big, but I wouldn't think they are that heavy. Most hats of the early 1900's were trimmed with feathers. They may look tall and/or wide, but it's all float-y feathers and ribbon and gauze. You would pin your hat onto your hair, so it couldn't be heavy or it would smash your Gibson Girl hairdo. :)

Ostrich feathers!

Genevieve Lantelme, 1905

This is one of my very favorites - Lillian Russell. (probably 1890's, based on her sleeves)

Bird Milman

Princess Kaiulani of Hawaii, 1890's.

Mary Weston

Nina Napier

Gaby Deslys

Princess Sophie Charlotte of Oldenburg, 1910

Even young girls wore hats! Paris, June 4th, 1906.

Another one of my favorite pictures.

1903

If you've ever wondered how a spoon-busked corset makes someone's posture, here you have it.

Miss Lily Elsie

Madeleine Celiat

So there you have it. Lots of feathers and flowers. I've bought some silk flowers for mine, partly because I like them and partly because ostrich feathers are way too pricey to cover a whole hat in. ;) I will keep looking, but there is no where online that I've found that sells untrimmed 1900's hats, except for boaters, but those aren't as big as what I'd like. I might resort to buying straw braid and sewing my own hat if I can't find anything.

Hope you are having a lovely week!

Lily of the Valley is for Happiness

This Thursday Mom and myself went up to Byron Center to a program in their library called Lily of the Valley is for Happiness. It was about the Victorian language of flowers and was quite fascinating! You can learn more about Wendy, the lady who gave the talk here.

Young Victorians, especially girls, studied entire books on the subject. They would carefully pick apart (maybe even literally!) bouquets from their friends and lovers to find the hidden meaning.

One of my favorite stories she told was of the Titantic. As it was customary for friends to send a bouquet of flowers on your departure, (most likely sweet peas, meaning departure) the ship became overloaded with flowers. They ran out of vases to put the flowers in, so they had to dump the excess overboard. I wish I could have seen that! Anyways, here are some common flowers and their meanings.

Most meanings were positive:

Baby's Breath - innocence, purity of heart

Dandelion - happiness

White lilac - youthful innocence

Phlox - proposal of love, sweet dreams

But some were bad:

Lavender - distrust

Geranium - stupidity

Marigold - cruelty, grief, jealousy

Tansy - I declare war against you!

I also thought it was interesting how different colors of the same flower changed the meaning. (See the example with roses below.)

Red rose - love

Generally, a red flower means love or passion, a white flower means innocence or purity, and yellow flowers are not usually good.

There was also meanings in how many flowers you received and how they were positioned, but I won't go into that.

pink rose - grace, beauty

Yellow rose - jealousy

Dried white rose - death preferable to loss of innocence

"We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses." - Abraham Lincoln.