Putting on My Top Hat

This is typical average height black wool top hat is about the most common top hat you will find.

 On this hat the brim is turned up and the crown while still the top cylinder tapers out towards the top.

Top hat can be taller or lower than this, the cylindrical crown can taper in, be straight or in the case of mad hatter style top hats taper out even more, the brim can be flat or turned up, all these are variations are top hats, some have sub type names others are just a tall top hat or low height top hat.

The black felt top hat like this one has been around since about 1900 for funeral services and still in use today.

I consider a average height top hat to be between 12 and 13 cm high.

One Hat Many Styles

From a basic wide brimmed felt hat you can change its look into many other styles. 

The photos below are all the same £5 felt hats from Primark, all created with quick stitch, you can cut and decorate to make many more better looks. 

Below the basic black felt hat as you buy it.

Below a Bicorn

Below a Tricorn

Below almost a Quadricorn, it needed a wider brim really, but 4 points were almost achieved.

Below a Yokel Hat

PS these were all purchased for £1 at the end of the season by my friend Dave who the master of spotting a bargain.

I don't Smoke so this is a Leisure Cap

The smoking cap is a hat designed to be worn indoors, whilst not Victorian in origin that is the period I mostly associate with them.

Smoking Cap is pill box hat that is usually worn with a smoking jacket which is thick short velvet or silk jacket.

They were worn by high class gentlemen while drinking port or brandy and smoking Turkish cigarettes & cigars home, both the cap and jacket where worn to stop normal cloths and hair smelling of smoke, they also keep the head warm.

The decorated smoking caps as I'm wearing here is a result Victorian men's sweethearts using their leisure hours to stitch and embroider these caps whilst they were fighting in Crimean war.

Smoking caps became high fashion after dinner wear in the Victorian period, today they are making come back with men and women, however someone has suggested they should now be called the more politically correct 'Leisure Cap'.

Nightcap

This Nightcap was made as a Birthday present by my good friend Julie back in 2009 you can see her blog about it here. 

Nightcaps are basically beanie hats designed to keep you head warm in bed back in the days before central heating, also to reduce the spread of head lice after your wig was removed.  

Nightcaps are said to be more commonly worn as people as got older probably because they are more likely to be bald or perhaps its because older people kept the fashion going as wearing nightcaps died out in the 1800's so its associated with older people your guess is as good as mine on that front.

Nightcaps where first reported has being worn in northern Europe in the middle ages and fashionable for all people from the mid 15th to late 19th Century.

Also known as a Sleeping Cap.

Topper

This photo of me was taken at Whitby where I spent the evening wondering about in a steampunk goth festival held there every year.

Top hats first appeared at the end of the 18th century and were very much an upper class status symbol or funeral hat worn by men, the best ones are silk rather than felt.

This hat is slightly battered ex-wedding top hat, the sort you pick up from a car boot for under five pounds.

This hat is 1/4" too big for me, but not complaining, cost next to nothing and does not fall over the ears, just uncomfortable to wear for long periods.

More about top varieties in a later posts

Bicorne Hat

This bicorne is a stiff felt hat, unlike the bicorne in my earlier post it won't fold flat, its also can only be worn fore and aft.

What I call hard hats might be better called stiff felt hats, they are hats made of felt where the felt is soak in water then steamed and then pressed in a mould and or rolled into shape. Once formed the hat stays to its formed shape and becomes quite rigid. Top Hats, Bowler Hats are usually made this way.

Purchased from a medieval market, this style is much flattened compared to some.

Chapeau-bras

Chapeau-bras is usually a bicorne but one that will collapse flat.

They were worn as part of 18th Century ceremonial, diplomatic, or naval dress, currently thinking of Admiral Nelson and Napolean Bonaparte.

It basic starting point is a wide brimmed hat with two opposing parts of the brim tied together.

This bicorne (bicorn works as a spelling as well) is at the cheap end of the spectrum, they get much more elaborate with feathers, emblems and gold and silver lace trim, often referred to as cocked hat once they get plumage or fancier. 

This was purchased at the Tewkesbury Medieval Battle Fair in 2013 according to the photo below

I also have none collapsing bicorne which I wear more often.

I have found a photo of someone else wearing it points front to back (fore and aft) in the photo below rather than side to side (athwart or port to starboard) as in photos of me above.