Text c Hats in the 1950s.

The exaggerated quill hairstyles favoured by subcultural youth during the 1950s largely precluded the wearing of hats. Roger Stephenson of James hock & Co. talks of the hatless generation of this era. Despite this, in the years immediately following the war British millinery enjoyed a resurgence. The New Look for women precipitated a fash­ion for large hats, which balanced the full skirts of the period. Indeed, the Coronation year of 1953 saw a peak in British hat-wearing. Simone Mirman's design, created from black horsehair with pink fabric rosebuds, has the popular ‘coolie’ profile. Mirman, who referred to her hats as 'objets d'art' was born in Paris but worked as part of the British fashion scene. She opened her own salon in London in 1947 and received her first royal со in mission in 1952, when she was asked to create a selection of hats for Princess Margaret. In 1965 Mirman was invited to design hats for the Queen.

Historical revival styles have proved a dominant influence upon post-war hat design in Britain. One оf the most popular styles has been the picture hat, popularized by film Mars such as Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn. Otto Lucas, the renowned British milliner of the 1950s, created the superbly crafted black straw and velvet hat typical of this style in about 1954. This nostalgia was an extreme contrast to the-mod­ernistic themes generated by spate travel and science fiction which were also proving influential. One amusing and elegant example was that created by the House of Lachasse for Mrs Gordan-Gottschalk, to wear on her wedding day in 1955. This design, evocatively named 'Martian's claw', is a tiny metal-spangled headpiece with claw-shaped prongs reaching across the head. For evening wear, women’s hats of the 1950s were delicate and bejeweled or extravagantly embellished with feathers, flowers and veils.

The social season was well served in this decade by milliners of the calibre of Aage Thaarup. Danish-born. Thaarup had set up his British business by 1932 and was favoured by royalty and society ladies. He was renowned for the wit and originality of his designs, and once made a hat for the future Queen Mother trimmed with plastic vegetables, much to the amusement of King George VI. The V&A has an ingenious Aage Thaarup hat in a pyramid shape, constructed from fabric daisies and wire. Thaarup was the first British couture milliner to design for the wholesale trade.

Milliners of this period also gained inspiration from sketches of the catwalk shows in London and Paris, which ensured that their designs complemented fashion (rends. Mass-market manufacturers followed suit, adapting and simplifying catwalk creations to facilitate large-scale production and keep prices competitive. For those unable to attend the fashion shows, illustrations proved an invaluable stylistic resource. Francis Marshall, one of the most talented post-war British fashion illustrators, produced beautiful sketch­es of the catwalk as well as drawings of the British social season.

It seems that the strict dress codes demanded by the Season, the traditional 'coming out' for young society women, were decreasingly applied to hats. Alison Adburgham noted in a 1954 issue of Punch that a gathering of debutantes 'were reprehensibly hat-less, a prevalent custom most distressing to milliners'." However, some debutantes did continue to respect tradition by don­ning small elegant hats, perhaps lopped by a spray or sprig of artificial flowers. Simone Mirman called these 'more than a coiffure; less than a hat'. The last debu­tantes to meet the Queen for a presenta­tion at court in 1958 wore these discreet styles.

Designer boutiques of the 1960s pro­vided the antithesis to the formal dress of the previous decade and young people no longer required the services of a bespoke milliner in order to wear a hat. Headwear was often purchased ready-made from boutiques in colours and fab­rics that complemented clothing. 'The fashionable large-brimmed floppy hats with minimal decoration were economi­cal to make, did not require special fit­ting and were easy to wear. Accepted codes of hat-wearing were broken down by the' most irreverent who wore their hats informally, irrespective of the occa­sion and time of day.