{"id":3170,"date":"2015-03-14T21:48:19","date_gmt":"2015-03-14T21:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=3170"},"modified":"2016-08-30T22:15:39","modified_gmt":"2016-08-30T22:15:39","slug":"the-story-of-the-top-hat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/the-story-of-the-top-hat\/","title":{"rendered":"The story of … the top hat"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alice Payne<\/a>, Queensland University of Technology<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

If you had to tell the story of one item or phenomenon in fashion, what would it be? See the end for information on how to get involved.<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Throughout the 19th century, the top hat was a mainstay of Victorian life: a man in a topper was well-to-do, respectable, a man of industry. But now the top hat is only a caricature of the upper class privilege it once represented. Its history traces a line through dandies, beavers, silk, and madness.<\/p>\n

The top hat is a tall cylindrical hat, typically made of silk mounted on a felt base. It has a high crown, a narrow, slightly curved brim, and is often black.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Caricature of Beau Brummell, print by Robert Dighton, 1805.<\/span>
\nWikimedia Commons<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The earliest top hat is often attributed to English milliner John Hetherington in a (possibly apocryphal) story<\/a> in the St James\u2019 Gazette in January 1797. Hetherington\u2019s first public outing in the top hat caused a riot, and he was later charged for \u201chaving appeared on the Public Highway wearing upon his head a tall structure having a shining lustre and calculated to frighten timid people\u201d.<\/p>\n

The top hat gained acceptance thanks to the famous English dandy, George \u201cBeau\u201d Brummel<\/a> (1778-1840), who became its first champion.<\/p>\n

Brummel was an innovator in men\u2019s fashions and a close friend of the Prince Regent, George IV (who became king in 1821). He spurned the flamboyance and decadence of men\u2019s fashion of the time, instead adopting simple, elegant and tailored attire such as equestrian-inspired breeches, spotless white shirts and exquisitely tailored jackets.<\/p>\n

Essential to his ensemble was the new top hat, dubbed the \u201cbeaver\u201d as its felt was made from beaver fur.<\/p>\n

Brummel was a style leader, and with the new craze for beaver top hats came an economic opportunity for the North American fur trade.<\/p>\n

Felt made from beaver fur was the most sought-after for hats as the qualities of the fur meant it held its shape in the rain, unlike the cheaper alternative of rabbit fur. While the European beaver was long-gone, hunted to extinction for its pelts by 1500, beavers were being hunted in North America.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Top hat from a French department store catalog, Paris 1909.<\/span>
\nshutterstock<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Hudson\u2019s Bay Company<\/a>, established in America in 1670 as a fur trading business, enjoyed a lucrative trade in beaver pelts. Brummel\u2019s popularising of the top hat in the early 19th century played a role in further decimation of beaver populations.<\/p>\n

From its beginnings, the expense and rarity of the beaver top hat became synonymous with upper class wealth, as a genuine beaver top hat would have cost<\/a> 40 shillings, while a hatter may only have earned two shillings and tuppence a day.<\/p>\n

Making a top hat was often lethal for hatters since mercury was used throughout the process of transforming beaver or rabbit fur to felt \u2013 known as \u201ccarroting\u201d as it turned the fibres orange. Prolonged exposure to mercury frequently led to mercury poisoning, with symptoms including early-onset dementia and irritability, muscular spasms and tremors, loss of hearing, eyesight, teeth and nails.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Mad Hatter.<\/span>
\nStewart Baird<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The mercury-poisoned mad hatter was of course immortalised in Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Lewis Carroll\u2019s Mad Hatter is always illustrated in a topper, the manufacture of which probably sent him mad in the first place.<\/p>\n

By the 1830s, fortunately for beaver populations, beaver pelt became d\u00e9mod\u00e9<\/em> as the silk top hat appeared. Until the turn of the century, the silk top hat was ubiquitous in respectable Victorian society.<\/p>\n

Although various shapes evolved such as flatter brims or higher or lower crowns, the basic form remained. Hat checkers had to be introduced at the theatre and opera, as top hats grew tremendously tall \u2013 up to 12 inches high \u2013 making it impossible for theatregoers to view the performance through the thicket of toppers. This led to Frenchman Antoine Gibus\u2019 invention of the opera hat<\/a>, or Gibus, a collapsible spring-loaded silk top hat.<\/p>\n

Top Hat (1935). Such flair and grace.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The top hat fell out of favour in the early 20th century as slowly more casual styles of headwear, such as the bowler hat, became accepted for everyday wear. The top hat became associated with Victorian stuffiness and formality, and was pulled out only for strictly formal occasions: weddings, the opera, garden parties, Ascot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Hip-hop musician T-Pain wearing a top hat at the Video Music Awards in 2008.<\/span>
\nTechie Diva<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The top hat\u2019s swan song may have been Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire\u2019s 1935 film<\/a> of the same name, one of the most famous of the duo\u2019s performances, in which Astaire wears a top hat with an elegance and panache to rival Brummel himself (and famously dances with one too<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Today top hats are rarely worn non-ironically. The art of top hat making is dying out, with only a handful of hatters still plying their trade<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In popular culture, the top hat is frequently comic, subversive or ridiculous \u2013 worn by such varied characters as Willy Wonka, stage magicians, steampunk cosplayers, the Fat Controller and Slash from Guns n’ Roses.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this is why, at Prince William and Catherine Middleton\u2019s royal wedding in 2011, David Beckham awkwardly cradled his Philip Treacy top hat<\/a> rather than wearing it.<\/p>\n

Are you an academic or researcher? Is there a fashion item \u2013 iconic, everyday or utilitarian \u2013 you would like to tell the story of? Contact the Arts + Culture editor<\/a> with your idea.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>.
\nRead the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alice Payne, Queensland University of Technology If you had to tell the story of one item or phenomenon in fashion, what would it be? See the end for information on how to get involved. Throughout the 19th century, the top hat was a mainstay of Victorian life: a man in a topper was well-to-do, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":7532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3170"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7533,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3170\/revisions\/7533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}