Make Your Own Hats

Excerpt

FOREWORD

Hat-making is an art which may be acquired by any one possessing patience and ordinary ability. To make a hat for the trade is not as difficult as to make one for an individual; neither is it so high a phase of art.

Many rules are given for crown-height, brim-width, and color, as being suited to different types of faces, but they are so often misleading that it seems best to consider only a few, since the becomingness of a hat almost invariably depends upon minor characteristics of the individual for which there are no rules.

A girl or woman with auburn hair may wear grays—gray-green, cream color, salmon pink; a touch of henna with gold or orange; mulberry if the eyes are dark.

The woman with dark hair and blue or dark eyes may wear any color if the skin is clear.

One having dark hair and eyes and a sallow skin may find golden brown, a pale yellow or cream color becoming—possibly a mulberry if just the right depth. A hat with slightly drooping brim faced with some shade of rose will add color to the cheeks. No reds should be worn unless the skin is clear. No shade of purple or heliotrope should be worn by any one having blue eyes—it seems to make the blue paler.

Any one having auburn hair, blue eyes, and a clear skin may wear browns, grays, greens, tan, blue, and black. Black should not be worn next the face unless the skin is brilliant. It is, however, very becoming to blondes, and to women whose hair has become quite white.

A black hat is almost a necessity in every woman's wardrobe, and it may always be made becoming by using a facing of some color which is especially becoming to the wearer—black and white is always a smart combination, but very difficult to handle.

In regard to lines—it is known that a hat with a drooping brim takes from the height of the wearer and should never be worn by any one having round shoulders or a short neck. A hat turned up at the back would be much better. A narrow brim and high crown add height to the wearer. A woman with a short, turned-up nose should avoid a hat turned up too sharply from the face. Short people should avoid very wide brims. For the possessor of a very full, round face the high crown and narrow brim, or a brim which turns up sharply against the crown on one side, or all around, should prove becoming. A tall, slender woman would do well to wear a drooping brim, wide enough to be in keeping with her height. There is one style of hat which seems to be, with various modifications, universally becoming, and that is the bicorne, a form of the Napoleon style of hat.

After all, experience is the best teacher. Whenever a hat is found to be especially becoming, one would do well to find out just why it is so and make a note of the color, size, and general outline. These notes are of value if kept for future reference, whether hats are to be made for the shop or for home millinery.

A hat is seldom becoming all the way around, but the aim should be to make it so. Over-ornamentation should be guarded against, also too close harmony in color until much experience has been gained. A rule by which to judge of the becomingness of a hat and to which there is no exception is this—the hat must enhance your looks. If you do not look more pleasing with it on than with it off, it is not as good a model for you as it might be.

In planning or choosing a hat we unconsciously decide upon those colors and outlines which are an outward expression of ourselves. A hat, as well as any article of clothing, may express many things—dejection, happiness, decision, indecision, gayety, dignity, graciousness, a trained or an untrained mind, forethought, refinement, generosity, cruelty, or recklessness. How often we hear some one say, “That hat looks just like Mrs. Blank!” Clothing of any kind is an index to the personality of the wearer. A friend once said in my presence to a saleswoman who was trying to sell her a hat, “But I do not feel like that hat!” The saleswoman replied, “That's just it—you refuse to buy it because you do not feel like it, while I tell you that it is most becoming.” All of which showed that this saleswoman had not the most remote idea of what was meant, and had a total lack of understanding....