Black hat

“ That the ladies' summer hats, however, should be lined with black, as not reverberating on their faces those rays which are reflected upwards from the earth or water? That the putting a white cap of paper or linen within the crown of a black hat, as some do, will not keep out the heat, though it would if placed without? ”

“ And as they cluster round the hat-stall, in a long, long suspense of indecision before they can commit themselves, trying on a new hat, their black hair gleams blue-black, and falls thick and rich over their foreheads, like gleaming bluey-black feathers. ”

“ It is not necessary for a man to shroud him [Pg 196] self in black. A silk hat with a crape band nearly to the top should be worn by widowers during the first year of their widowerhood; but black shirt studs, black sleeve buttons, handkerchiefs bordered with black, and the other abominations in which the grief-stricken Frenchman arrays himself are not tolerated in this country. In deep mourning one can wear black ties and black gloves, but a white linen tie in summer is permissible. I do not advocate the use of black scarf pins. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The hat is the woman. In a thousand ways the hat declares the existence of occult meanings. A woman who would cut a man who wore a made tie, who would not buy a reproduced antique or pirated print, who knows Sèvres at a hundred yards and a real Bokhara in the dark, will cover her head with linen lilies and cotton-bloated roses. A woman who would hesitate to [133] put a jewel in her hair, will heap upon the dyed straw of her hat festoons of glass and steel and wax, with the fretted carcass of a bird. ”

“ Once or twice we caught a glimpse of the light-brown hat formerly worn by all men about to be married, or to add a new wife to their collection of servants; once the custom was wide-spread of painting the hat white in sign of mourning, but to-day black is almost universal, and an excellent foil to the otherwise white garb. ”

“ The very best way to clean a black hat, whether it be chip, mohair, or tagel, real or imitation, is to make some rather strong tea, and, after brushing all dust from the hat, apply this with a small brush. ”

“ A pleasing variety is sometimes obtained by using a colored underfacing on a black hat. The entire facing may be of a contrasting color or extend only from headsize wire to within an inch of the edge of the brim. In this case there could be a strip of material the same as upper facing an inch and a half wide finished at the edge of the brim with a wire. ”

“ A slight girlish figure, in a pale gray dress; a mantlet or scarf, edged with black lace, drawn closely round her; she was crowned by a pretty little hat, also bordered with black lace, and adorned with a large bouquet of primroses and tufts of narrow black velvet ribbon. Under the hat beamed a pair of thoughtful, earnest, dark-blue eyes—large and lustrous; eyes that none could pass unnoticed ”

“ The other is a short, square-built, almost uncouth figure, overshadowed by a wide straw hat, which seems even to diminish his stature; a suit of black, wide and ample enough for one twice his size, gives his appearance a grotesqueness to which his features contribute their share. ”

“ And yet the Professor wears a hat. I had occasion, one day, when she had left it for a moment on a table, to study it analytically as a creation. It was a fearful and wonderful thing. No man ever can forget the moment when first, with mature deliberation, and in a consciousness of the vast significance of life, he takes up a woman’s hat, timorously, as if it were a ten-inch shell or Minerva’s helmet, and gazes into its fragile fastness. When I mentally grasped, as a man may in the absence of the wearer, the many and extraordinary elements of the Professor’s hat ”

“ The straw of oats or wheat and corn husks were braided and made into hats. Hats which were almost everlasting, we used to think, were made of pine straw. Hats were made of cloth also. I remember one in particular of gray jeans, stitched in small diamonds with black silk thread. It was as perfect a hat as was ever moulded by the [59] hatter, but the oddness of that hat consisted in its being stitched on the sewing-machine with silk thread. ”

“ He urged his hearers to encourage the silk hat revival.
Sir SQUIRE BANCROFT concurred with the illustrious nobleman who had just spoken. The choice of a hat should be the subject of the most earnest thought, even of prayer. (Cheers.) Not only the shape but the colour. There were hats that were black and hats that were white. (Shouts of "Hurrah!") There were even white hats with black trimming. (Sensation.) The older he grew the more convinced he was that an Englishman's hat was his castle. ”

“ WORN AFTER TWO P. M. The Head.—A black silk top-hat. Always of the latest pattern, either Paris, London, or New-York make. All are equally stylish. This hat, above all others, should be made to order; this being necessary if you desire a fit both becoming and comfortable.
In this city spring and summer have light weights. For fall and winter a slightly heavier hat is made. This is the only proper hat for afternoon dress in summer or winter.
[22]
The Hand.—Light or dark tan kid walking gloves are worn. The back stitching may be black silk or same shade as the glove. One or two buttons. ”

“ The natives show infinitely more vanity in the selection of a piece of clothing, than calculation as to its real necessity or suitability. A large low-crowned white hat with broad rim, which we presented to one native, gained not the slightest approval, although both in form and colour it was far better suited to protecting the wearer against the rays of the tropical 111sun than a high, narrow-brimmed, fashionable black silk hat, to the possession of which the natives of Kar-Nicobar and Nangkauri attach quite an inordinate value. ”

“ Fig.102 - Cut the Pistil out of the flowers.
The hats these little ladies wear to the party are of the same silky material as their skirts and are usually of the same color, though sometimes a lady in white will appear in a pink or yellow hat, or a pink lady can be seen wearing a white hat, and the lady in rose knows how well she looks in a hat that is almost black. When there are two or more gowns of the same color the hollyhock ladies prefer to have different colored hats so that they will not all look alike. ”

“ A low hat should not be worn with a long coat—a double-breasted frock, for example. Dark suits are preferable for Sundays, especially in town, and light suits should never be worn to church anywhere. Double-breasted frock coats should always be black. ”

“ Yet those who have been most ready to take the hat off are not so ready to supply a succedaneum for the head. It is all very well for a country gentleman to move about his own neighbourhood in a straw fishing-hat: and on a long railroad journey any and every kind of cap and covering is permissible; but those who live in great cities and have a character to support are always driven back to the old, inevitable black silk hat. ”

“ The rich manufacturers of Trogen and Herisau and Teufen had belts and silver-mounted dress-swords. With scarce an exception, every man was habited in black, and wore a stove-pipe hat, but the latter was in most cases brown and battered. Both circumstances were thus explained to me: as the people vote with the uplifted hand, the hat must be of a dark color, as a background, to bring out the hands more distinctly ”

“ An old round fur hat, intended originally for a boy, and only made to fit his head by being slit in sundry places at the bottom, thus leaving a dozen yawning gaps, through which, as through the chinks of a lattice, stole out as many stiff bunches of black hair, gave to the capital excrescence an air as ridiculous as it was truly uncouth ”

“ The only correct head-covering will be the tall hat, which I hear will be bulgier than ever this year. The smartest will have open crowns and little or no brims. There has been some attempt to revive the old straw hat, though only with a black ribbon, but I have not heard of this being adopted by Guys with any pretensions to dressiness. ”

“ Their usual head-dress is either a white straw hat, or a black round beaver hat, with black ostrich feathers. I prefer the straw hat; it is more tasteful than the round hat which always seems to me too masculine for a woman. ”

“ A chimney-pot hat, a white neckerchief, somewhat broad in its folds and strong with plentiful starch, a stout black coat, cut rather shorter than is common with clergymen, and a modest, darksome waistcoat that shall attract no attention, these are all matters of course. ”

“ For some reason, very big men do not look well in glossy black coats and silk hats; they seem to want wideawakes, bowlers, caps, anything rather than a Paris hat, and some loose-cut jacket of a free-and-easy colour, suitable for the field, or cricket, or boating. ”

“ In the same way, there is no form of hat yet devised by human ingenuity that will not tempt forgiveness when it is on the right woman.
And woman herself quite clearly perceives the force of association, the importance, if the significance of the hat is to be preserved and understood, of keeping it on her head. If this were not so why should we be confronted with the monumental paradox that our womankind are keeping their hats on in church and taking them off in places of amusement? At the theatre woman consents to be separated from her hat, and to have her hat separated from her. ”

“ I am assured that it is a measure of sanity in a man that he shall like woman in whatever she wears. She can confound our most precious theories by doing as she pleases in the matter of dress, for the effect is always right because she has produced it. It all is her. You might as well find fault with the shade of crimson in the feathers on the bosom of a robin as to find fault with the color of her hat or gloves. ”

“ The gesture of the fingers with which a woman readjusts a hairpin, or, perhaps, simply ascertains that it is doing its duty, is wonderfully similar among all women. Yet the gesture may to a singular degree be a reflection of her personal style, and in that latitude for purely personal grace you sometimes are brought to the compensatory fact that in sitting behind the hat you also are sitting behind the hairpins. ”

“ Life-timers of society, they were slowly sinking without a straw to grasp at.
The time flew till Sunday. I looked over my clothes and wished I had my gray suit and gray hat. I had saved my money but had not enough yet to buy them.
I was apprehensive about meeting Julia. I could picture her coming into the drug store for me in a dashing big hat, rustling silk dress, expensive shoes, all powdered, perfumed, and painted as she was in [49] Madam Singleton’s. And me with my pants too short, my coat sleeves way up my wrists, and my shirt open at the collar. ”

“ She takes, deliberately and with exquisite selective tact, certain entirely simple, inoffensive elements,—things which in themselves you must acknowledge to be harmless and almost rational; she takes these simple elements and she puts them together by a method, and in a manner, of which no man, if he lived to be one hundred and eighty-six, ever would discover the secret, and, waving her wizard wand over the entire mess, she calls it a hat! ”

“ Because of them, men have passed laws and sleepless nights. Because of them men fought duels in the last century and lawsuits in this. To make it possible to have them more refulgent and fetching, husbands and fathers have worked on Sundays and stopped smoking. Though it has been assailed with fanatical bitterness, buffeted by satire, stripped by statute, stoned by envy, disciplined by reform, the hat serenely survives, a defiant catalogue of every trait for which it ever has been either praised or condemned. ”

“ The morning dress for gentlemen is a black frock-coat, or a black cut-away, white or black vest, according to the season, gray or colored pants, plaid or stripes, according to the fashion, a high silk (stove-pipe) hat, and a black scarf or necktie. A black frock coat with black pants is not considered a good combination, nor is a dress coat and colored or light pants. The morning dress is suitable for garden parties, Sundays, social teas, informal calls, morning calls and receptions. ”

“ It is equally hurtful for children and adults to walk in the sun with the head uncovered, yet our cumbersome black hats though sanctioned by custom and fashion, are generally too heavy for the hot days of summer ”

“ A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black, A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl Make him the quaint great figure that men love, The prairie-lawyer, master of us all. ”

“ The apple-pie hat which she wore, surmounted with black willow plumes, concealed from view a face so face-like in its appearance as to be positively facial. ”

“ No one could wear a red one unless he had killed at least one person, and he could not have it striped until he had killed seven. Now they wear neat white and black hats, which are woven from various materials which they gather in the field. ”

“ You don’t want any funny hats, either, or loud ties.
“You know when you are doing things to people you depend largely on the element of surprise. They do not look at you carefully and memorize your features. They get a fleeting, frightened glance, and you are off. But a red tie, Kid, a glance is enough, and no matter how surprised your party may be he remembers your gray suit, gray hat, or red tie.”
The Sanctimonious Kid was a sober, careful character. He did not gamble and keep us broke as poor [140] Smiler had. We went along easily and got some good out of our money. ”