Your Victorian hat can be just as colorful and decorative as modern hats.
The Victorian era, which lasted from 1837 to 1901, encompassed many different fashion styles that evolved from decade to decade. The ever-changing trends also extended to accessories, such as hat styles. Unlike today's hats, hats from the Victorian and earlier periods were designed around hairstyles. If the style of the decade called for shorter hair, hats were designed with low crowns and fit closely to the skull. If the style called for big hair, hats had high or open crowns. Early Victorian hats of the 1840s and 1850s were usually bonnets of average height suited to cover small updo hairstyles.
Instructions
1. Find a plain, blank straw bonnet from a hatmaking supply shop, such as those linked in the Resources section.
2. Measure the distance around the crown of the blank bonnet. Cut a circle of satin fabric that is 1 1/2 times this measurement in the circumference.
3. Gather stitch or pleat the edges of the circle on your sewing machine. Adjust the gathers or pleats until the pieces fit over the bonnet crown.
4. Fit the fabric over the crown of the bonnet. Adjust until you have the fit you want.
5. Handstitch or glue the raw edges of the satin to the straw hat.
6. Cut a length of 1-inch wide satin ribbon that is long enough to cover the join between the fabric and the hat. Glue or handstitch the ribbon over the join, tucking the raw edges of the ribbon inside at the back of the hat.
7. Cut another length of 1-inch wide satin ribbon that is long enough to cover the outside curve of the brim. Glue or handstitch the ribbon to the curve. You can also use lace for this part of the hat decoration.
8. Cut a length of 2-inch wide satin ribbon that is 24 inches long. Cut it in half.
9. Glue or handstitch the ribbon pieces to each side of the join between the crown and brim, where the other ribbon is attached. These will be used to tie the bonnet under the chin.
10. Glue or handstitch embellishments over the ribbon ends on the crown. You can use bows or flowers here to cover the raw edges of the ribbon.
11. Add other embellishments to the rest of the hat. Some common embellishments for the period are flowers, bows and lace all around the join between the brim and the crown.
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