Biggles Gets a Hat

The Flying Cap, Aviator Hat, or Bomber Hat is simple a leather hat, fur or felt lined with ear flaps and chin strap to keep it on in the wind, designed to protect and keep your head and ears warm when flying planes with open cockpits back in early days of flight.

These hats are very similar to trapper or hunting hat, the main difference being the ear flaps are longer and don't have ties to fasten them up.

Usually worn with goggles to protect your eyes, I have read most Boeing 747 and Airbus A320 pilots don't wear them anymore which is a shame.

James Bigglesworth is a fictional pilot from around the time of the first world war in books by W.E Johns, he did fly in stories in later wars and between wars, but his book covers regularly showed him wearing a flying cap, for that reasons you may also find this cap or hat called a Biggles Hat

Below is the story in pictures of Richard Bigglesworths James older more hansom brother

Chapter 1 : Biggles Dons His Flying Cap

Chapter 2 : Biggles Wags A Finger

Chapter 3 : Biggle Leans Backwards

Chapter 4 : Biggles Ready To Learn To Fly

Chapter 5 : Biggles Shows The Back Of His Cap

Purple Zucchetto

This hat is a Zucchetto worn by the Pope and other clerics of various Catholic Churches although I think the pope wears a white one but apparently he can wear any colour he wants. 

Also worn by the higher clergy in Anglicanism, and some other Christian Orthodox churches.

Basically a small skull cap, Zucchetto mean small gourd in Italian, this may be because the panels are sewn together to make a shape like the dome of a pumpkin or gourd.

Rabbis of Jewish faith also wear these although theirs are called kippot which is the Hebrew word for skullcap. They can also be called yarmulkes (pronounced yamakas), which is a Yiddish word taken from the Polish word also for skullcap.

Apparently the Zuchetto came in to being to keep shaven heads warm when it was the tradition for religious clerics to shave their heads. On the other hand Jews wear them as respect to God, which comes the religious book, the Talmud, which orders them to: "Cover your head in order that the fear of heaven may be upon you." 

 This hat is also known by the names pilus, pilos, pileus, pileolus, subbiretum, submitrale, soli deo, berrettino, calotte.

This hat is part our crew kit 

Turban Hat

This is what I'm calling a turban hat since its not piece of cloth wrapped around your head to make a turban, its formed ready to wear shaped hat, made to look turban like.

Made as a piece of theatre costume, I found this at Chow's Emperium while rummaging one day on her stall. 

Formed around a plastic skull cap with various fabric off-cuts and then decorated beads and feathers, getting a bit battered, but still good.

This hat is great for transporting you into some Arabian tale, such as Sinbad, Aladdin, Ally Baba and the forty thieves.

Iron Man

A man with iron.

Wearing a hard hat.

Ironing is a tough job and safety is important.

The builders hard hat is seen everywhere in today's safety conscious environment and rightly so, the amount of fatalities and lesser injury as dropped dramatically since the days when work wear was jeans and t shirt. If I go on building site I now have to wear gloves, safety boots, hi-viz jackets, safety glasses as well as a hard hat and that's alongside safety training and all the permits you might sign.

Hard hats were once steel but now they are rigid plastic designed to protect the head from falling object or banging your head on projecting nasty objects, essential where there is any risk, one of these saved me from nasty injury when a bolt was dropped from scaffold tower 30 foot and hit the hat, I felt a heavy bang but nothing else.

The hard hats were first worn at the very end of the 19th century in the USA who seem to have led the way in their use.

This one is quite old and probably no longer to current standards but makes a great costume prop.

Crewe Steampunk Convivial

Last weekend I visited Crewe Steampunk Convivial and dressed up for the visit including a greeny brown Derby hat

Posing by traction engine

Equipped with basic goggles since when your zooming about at speeds over 5 mph on these steam monsters you could get eye damage.

Crewe Steampunk Convivial was a jolly good day out, but I missed most of the entertainment, this was the first event in Crewe of its kind I understand and perhaps needs a little more work to grow into something good, the set up was very dis-jointed, no signs, no timetables, however if they try again I will probably go again. 

This hat was found at a car boot sale.

Now I'm British so perhaps I should say I was wearing a Bowler Hat, but see my previous post here if you want to know why its a Derby.

Reversible Acorn Hat

This medieval style acorn hat is reversible, 2 hats for one

I'm not sure why I'm pulling a odd face, some hats make me do this.

Below I'm studying the complexity of turning something inside out or outside in or perhaps outside out since both sides are the outside of the hat, who knows.

Acorn hats appeared mainly in the late 15th Century although they existed before and after this period.

The style of these hats can vary considerable both in hight and style, some are skull tight, some are comedy tall, this one fall in between.

Reversible Acorn Hat by Mike The Hat 

Viking Hat

Fur trimmed wool Viking hat

Viking hats were usually made of either wool, sheepskin, leather and fur. 

Each hat is made of 4 triangular panels sewn together to form a crown, sometimes close fitting skull cap style or looser like this one. 

They were were often trimmed with fur like this one or embroidery work. 

A medieval Icelandic law prohibited removing a hat from another person, if they did they could be fined, unless the hat had a chin strap then you could have throttled the person so the victim of the attempted hat removal could lawfully kill you in retaliation. Truth or website nonsense I'm not sure but made for a interesting fact.

This fur trimmed hat was from  Bohemia Beauty Ltd however all they show on their website is their glass object, the hat was made by the owners wife as a sideline to sell a Tewkesbury Medieval Fair.