Hats with a French Accent: How the Gibuses, Boaters, Cloches and Why Paris Is Called Panama

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Thousands of years ago, hats were introduced as a way to protect themselves from the cold and sunlight. And to make hats and caps exquisite and memorable, comfortable and practical is a task that French fashion has brilliantly coped with for centuries, inevitably spreading throughout Europe, and after it - around the world.

From antiquity to European hat fashion of the Middle Ages

At the origins of the emergence of headdresses, there are headscarves with which the ancient Egyptians covered their heads: a striped "nemes" with blue stripes was intended for the pharaohs, priests and other subjects wore clafts, scarves tightly covering the head and painted depending on the status of their owner. The ancient Greeks used petasos hats on their hikes.

It was this headdress that became the basis for all the hats and hats that appeared later, the history of which has already spanned tens of centuries and hundreds or even thousands of names.

During the Middle Ages, the fashion for hats can hardly be called diverse. Often, the role of hats was played by hoods, which over time turned into a kind of turban with scalloped ornaments - a chaperon.

Chaperones were worn by both men and women, however, the method of construction and wearing of these headdresses and their color varied. Interestingly, one of the accusations of Jeanne dArc was the fact that she wore a black woolen chaperone and took it off in church, that is, behaved like a man.

Since the XIV century, thanks to Queen Isabella of Bavaria, the atura, or annena, high women's hats in the form of a cone or cylinder, without brims, built with the help of a whalebone, starched flax, and expensive silk fabrics on top of it, began to come into fashion. Women tucked their hair under the annen, and it was customary to cut and shave loose strands. The height of such accessories could reach one meter, and when entering the room, the ladies had to squat.

Hats of Musketeers and Fair Ladies

Later came the time of wide-brimmed hats - probably because in European cities the practice of pouring sewage out of the window was practiced, and the streets were too narrow. Be that as it may, since the 17th century, hats have occupied a special place in the wardrobe - crowns are decorated with feathers, buckles made of precious metals and even diamonds, and the greeting turns into an elegant ritual with removing the hat and making certain movements with it.

The brim of the hat was often raised and attached to the crown. Women wore caps at home, and on the way out - wide-brimmed hats decorated with plumes. Fashion trends were sometimes determined by chance - for example, once on a hunt, the favorite of Louis XIV, Angelique de Roussil-Fontanges, tied her hair with a piece of lace - the hairstyle and a kind of headdress liked the king so much that soon all the ladies at the court mastered the new image, and the lace cap has since acquired the name "fountain".

The custom of pinning the brim of felt hats on two and then on three sides became fashionable among men - this provided greater comfort during hostilities and on hunting, and the nobles began to wear cocked hats.

Gradually, the design of hats, both for women and men, became more complicated, along with the voluminous wigs introduced into French fashion by Queen Marie Antoinette, intricate ways to decorate hats appeared - including special mechanisms that set in motion the figures of butterflies and birds.

At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, bicorne hats appeared, whose appearance is associated primarily with Napoleon, although the emperor's headdress was sewn according to a special project by the master Poupard, and the idea of the hat cut belonged to Bonaparte himself.

The beginning of the 19th century gave the world high flat-top hats - top hats. The French also distinguished themselves here - the hatter Antoine Jibus, together with his brother Gabriel, developed a cap - a folding cylinder with which it was convenient to enter the room and watch performances, because the hat after cotton became flat, did not take up space and could be worn under the arm. The Gibus hat was popular from the thirties of the XIX century until the First World War.

Much more democratic and widespread were caps called "Gavroche" - named after the hero of Victor Hugo's novel "Les Miserables". The caps themselves, like the berets, which served as prototypes for the Gavroche, have been familiar to mankind for a long time, since the time of the Etruscans, but the French and the French are for that, to give charm and breathe new life into things that have already become classic. Gavroches were worn by both men and women - these voluminous soft hats with a short visor, part of the outfit of Parisian street boys of the 19th century - do not go out of fashion today.

Boaters were also very popular - men's straw hats of a rigid shape with narrow brims. At first, this style found widespread among athletes-rowers, but soon boaters were already worn everywhere. Among the women who loved this type of hats was the French trendsetter Coco Chanel.

XX century hats and caps

And another milliner, Caroline Rebout, created a hat that became a fashion symbol of the twenties and thirties of the last century - the cloche.

The name - from the word “bell” - described the new model as best as possible: a hat made of soft felt fabric, tight-fitting to the head, pulled low over the forehead. Especially "under the cloche" they made a short haircut "Eaton", and the ribbon on the hat carried additional information - for example, a bright bow said that the owner of this headdress was interested in new acquaintances, while the tight knot embodied the lady's strong married status.

In general, since the second half of the nineteenth century, the French fashion for hats and especially hats resembles a kaleidoscope - dozens and even hundreds of new styles emerge, rapidly gaining popularity and just as rapidly disappearing into oblivion. "Bibi", "anemone", "wagon", chauntecleer, pill - as a rule, they no longer perform any practical functions, and serve only the purpose of decorating their owners, remained on the pages of the history of French couturier art.

It is curious that Paris itself is called Panama on the argo - just like the headdress that originates from the national straw hat of Ecuador - toquilla. There are several versions about the history of this nickname for the fashion capital, but the most often mentioned is the one associated with the construction of the Panama Canal at the beginning of the 20th century, which connected the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic. It was during these large-scale works, which attracted tens of thousands of workers from all over the world, that the toquillas were appreciated and accepted by the Parisian fashion community.

No less fascinating is the story of another type of accessories - glovesthat have gone their way from antiquity to the present day hand in hand with headdresses.