Millinery: CUNNING COCKTAIL CONCOCTIONS (c) By Polly Guerin

Ellen Christine Couture Millinery

“Glamour” with a capital “G” and polished, lady-like looks are predicted by Fashion 2011 and along comes the revival of the Cocktail Hat. This sophisticated little frippery is making a strong comeback to complement the glamorous, chic new look. There are now many talented craftspeople and millinery designers creating their version of these tempting hats and one of the rising stars is designer Ellen Christine Colon Lugo, Ellen Christine Couture Millinery, who has designed the hottest accessory items of the moment. Although she makes a variety of one-of-a-kind fashionable hats for every head, the feminine, fun and sexy little gems recall the era of the 1930s and 1940s when cocktail hats first emerged on the scene to be worn to cocktail parties and soignée events. Ellen Christine’s precious cocktail hat creations and luxury millinery can be viewed at the Metropolitan Opera Gift Shop and by appointment at admin.ellenchristine.com.

SOME HISTORICAL FACTS

Little cocktail hats with peak-a-boo veils and flowery/feathery fascinator headpieces, worn at the side of the head, have been around since the 1800s. This bit of fluff has come in and out of fashion, but they have finally caught on and even modern fashionistas are perching these chic little nesting hats on their heads to be worn with almost everything. An alternative to wide brimmed hats, these delightful concoctions are the perfect finishing touch for cocktail frocks, prom dresses, evening and wedding gowns or afternoon tea.

COCKTAILS FOR TWO

Cocktail hats and cocktail dresses are fashionable partners. Celebrated French fashion designer, Christian Dior was the first to name the fashionable frock “a cocktail dress in the late 1940s. Traditional cocktail dresses were inspired by the little black dress, introduced by Coco Chanel circa 1926, when the black color was acknowledged as the most appropriate and elegant solution for cocktail attire. This fashionable duo grew into the cocktail culture of the 1950’s when the cocktail hat and the sleeveless cocktail dress were designed to satisfy most discerning constant visitors to the cocktail party.

THE FASHION ESSENTIALS

Dressing for cocktails or a special occasion was a fine art of feminine prerogative. Traditional cocktail dresses were worn with lots of accessories, particularly those little flirty hats, small black purses or gem-studded minaudieres to hold cosmetics and a bit of cash, shoes to match the color of the dress, elbow-long gloves that accented the elegance of a woman’s hand in the absence of sleeves. These accessories were ‘must haves’ to the cocktail dress well into the middle 1960s. If 2011 fashion has its way similar accessories, with the replacement of spike heels instead of matching shoes will capture the imagination of modern women, who covet the elegant, feel- good femininity that these accessories can convey to their sophisticated fashionable appearance. CONFECTIONS OF IMAGINATION

Those small extravagant cocktail hats are often decorated with romantic frills upon it including beads, jewels, sequins, flowers or feathers and very often have a peak-a-boo veil. They are closely related to fascinators, which are extremely charming hairpieces, decorated with feathers or flowers and worn on the side of the head. Most fashion stylists advise that the sophisticated little cocktail hat should be perched forward on the head, often at a titled jaunty angle, over one eye---so sexy and flirty. These witty hats contrast perfectly with the immaculate, polished groomed look today. No other hat in history has beguiled and provided a look that is so feminine, romantic, and seductive.

Double Model Image Photo by Sandy Ramirez

A WOMAN'S CROWNING GLORY, A HAT TO MATCH (C)

A WOMAN’S CROWNING GLORY, A HAT TO MATCH ©

By Polly Guerin,

The Fashion Historian

Hats have always functioned as more than mere head coverings. The styles created by different civilizations also proclaimed the rank and status of the wearer. It distinguished people by degrees of social class, profession and religious order. Head gear also defined the etiquette of an era, and hats were always an important part of regional and national costume. So what became of a one’s crowning glory?

DEMISE OF MILLINERY

Hats were an important aspect of American and European fashion, until about the 20th century when men and women started going hatless. Today one hardly ever sees women wearing hats. Exceptions being at church services, weddings, race courses and other special events. Construction workers give us hard hats, baseball caps identify with the all-American spirit, and the beret seems to be mainstay worn by women as well as men in the private and military sectors. Millinery has a broad and ancient history.

THE EGYPTIANS

The early Egyptians were proud of their wig headdresses. In the beginning wigs were adorned with a tasteful gold band. In time, however, this ornamentation became more elaborate and symbols of Gods emerged like ram’s horns or the sun disk. However, it took Queen Nefertiti to introduce the wide-topped crown, but other queens preferred to adopt the vulture headdress, a symbol for motherhood. To top it off the Greeks had their own take on hats.

CROWNING GLORY

Cretans’ hats were a lavish affair---jeweled berets and turbans; huge towering fezzes were worn at a jaunty tilt. Tall, candle-shaped crowns plopped onto wide, flat brings. By the sixth century B.C. women had a nice range of hair styles to choose from. Queens and Goddesses got to wear golden coronets or most regal of all a crescent-shaped diadem, the Stephane. To protect their coifs from the weather, Etruscan men and women might affect a tutulus, a curious pointed hat with an upturned brim. Always the fashion followers by the mid-eighth century, many women copy Charlemagne’s mother, Bertha, who wears her long hair parted in the center and held in place with two thick braids and a headband around her forehead.

THE MIDDLE AGES

When we think of the Middle Ages we picture the period as romantic but it is the era of the Crusades with men going out with snoops, hoods and a variety of hear gear. Women of importance and rank, like Eleanor of Aquitaine wear a high headdress, a pointed cone-shaped hat adorned with a view which helps her to achieve the elongated silhouette inspired by Gothic architecture.

PUTTING ON A THINKING CAP

Men have their day in the 13th century. In an era when most people were illiterate, teachers and philosophers wear square-cut caps which are fit tightly against their skulls and people start talking about “putting on their thinking cap.” Women’s pillbox-shaped caps with their attached chin straps do have some charm but Robin Hood hats with pointed visors and high crowns are in fashion. When Isabelle of Bavaria arrives in France to marry Charles VI, she brings with her outlandish millinery and women of her court sport bourrelets—wide, padded rolls, anchored on top of their hair and the towering cone shaped headdress grows to fantastic proportions. In the Renaissance the Mary Queen of Scots, a veil suspended from a rigid frame was de rigueur.

LOUIS XIV RULE

In the 1670s and 1680s, women adopt a variety of hats---beautifully embroidered snoods stretch over hair buns, hoods for protection and best of all, glamorous wide-brimmed picture hats. By 1735 Fashion Dolls, exact replicas of fashionable French Ladies, from their headgear down to their makeup travel to the Colonies and American women of rank and wealth adopt Parisian style. However, the saga of fashion hats takes a turn for simplicity for the new settlers and the wide-brimmed bonnet carries them forward into the new frontier.

THE WORLD OF FASHION

In the world of fashion, women’s hats were hardly functional at all. Like the tiny cocktail hats of the 1930s that perched at angles on a woman’s head, it was pure décor of the most charming of decorative accessories. Much of the credit for wearing impressive hats today can be observed at black community churches where women take pride in wearing their crowning glory as a sign of respect and their regal privilege. Mad hatters done their fantasy hats at the Easter Parade in New York, and hats of picturesque splendor offer a picture opportunity at charity functions and race track openings. However, once upon a time a woman would not have left the house without a hat, which completed the outfit. In folklore the hat represented a queen's crown and declared to the world that a woman was indeed a Lady.