Massive Crowds at Met’s Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty. Josh Harner. New York Times. 29 July 2011. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/fashion/mets-mcqueen-retrospective-is-expected-to-break-records.html
Fashion exhibitions have grown to be a huge event in the recent decade both within the fashion and museum worlds. Through this podcast, I examine the potential reasons for their success.
Bibliography:
Bourdieu, Pierre.“Haute Couture and Haute Culture.”In Sociology in Question.London: Sage, 1993.
Bourdieu, Pierre.“The Forms of Capital.”In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education.New York: Greenwood, 1986: 241-258.
Bourdieu, Pierre with Alain Darbel and Dominique Schnapper.The Love of Art: European Art Museums and their Public. Cambridge: Polity, 1990.
Bowles, Hamish. Vogue & the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute: Parties, Exhibitions, People. New York: Abrams, 2014.
Clark, Judith and Amy de la Haye with Jeff Horsley.Exhibition Fashion: Before and After 1971.New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.
Christin, Angèle.“Gender and highbrow cultural participation in the United States.”Poetics, vol. 40 (2012): 423-443.
DiMaggio, Paul.“Art art-museum visitors different from other people? The relationship between attendance and social and political attitudes in the United States.” Poetics, Vol. 24 (1996): 161-180.
DiMaggio, Paul and Toqir Mukhtar.“Arts participation as cultural capital in the United States, 1982–2002: Signs of decline?” Poetics, Vol. 32 (2004): 169-194.
Dowd, Maureen.“‘Heavenly Bodies,’ the Met’s Biggest Show Ever, Earns Its Hallelujahs.”Vogue.11 April 2018.https://www.vogue.com/article/met-gala-2018-heavenly-bodies-fashion-and-the-catholic-imagination-vogue-may-2018-issue
Greenberger, Alex.“A Look at the Met’s Top 10 Most Visited Exhibitions of All Time.”Art News.09 December 2015.http://www.artnews.com/2015/09/12/a-look-at-the-mets-top-ten-most-visited-exhibitions-of-all-time/
Kuldova, Tereza.“Fashion exhibition as a critique of contemporary museum exhibitions: The case of ‘Fashion India: Spectacular Capitalism.”Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty, Vol. 5, No. 2 (2014): 313-335.
Melchoir, Marie Riegels and Birgitta Svensson (eds.).Fashion and Museums: Theory and Practice.London: Bloomsbury, 2014.
Menkes, Suzy.“Gone Global: Fashion as Art?”New York Times. 04 July 2011.http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/fashion/is-fashion-really-museum-art.html
Palmer, Alexandra.“Untouchable: Creating Desire and Knowledge in Museum Costume and Textile Exhibitions.” Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture.12:1 (2008): 31-63.
Rocamora, Agnès.“Pierre Bourdieu: The Field of Fashion.”In Thinking Through Fashion: A Guide to Key Theorists, eds. Agnès Rocamora and Anneke Smelik.London: I.B. Tauris, 2016: 233-250.
Steele, Valerie. “A Museum of Fashion is More Than a Clothes-Bag.” Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture. 2 (1998): 327–336.
Steele, Valerie. “Museum Quality: The Rise of the Fashion Exhibition.”Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture.12:1 (2008): 7-30.
The First Monday in May.Directed by Andrew Rossi.2016: Magnolia Pictures.Film.
Vänskä, Annamari and Hazel Clark (eds.).Fashion Curating: Critical Practice in the Museum and Beyond.New York: Bloomsbury, 2017.
Wilson, Eric.“At the Met, McQueen’s Final Showstopper.”New York Times.29 July 2011.https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/fashion/mets-mcqueen-retrospective-is-expected-to-break-records.html
“What does it mean to be a man?” This was one of the articles featured in the premiere edition of Gentry magazine in the winter of 1951 (Gentry 73). Gentry was a hallmark gentlemen’s magazine of the 1950s and arguably ever since. Not only did it cover a wide variety of topics such as fashion, art, culture, food, home improvement, and automobiles, it did so in luxe manner with heavyweight paper, beautiful design, thoughtful literature, and samples of fabric or even spices attached to its advertisements. Gentry was “for those people who have never relished the banal or the ordinary” (Gentry 43). Gentry magazine was the ultimate gentlemen’s magazine for the ultimate gentlemen of the 1950s.
Gentry. Issue 1. Winter 1951. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives RB P.S Ge 260 No.1.Table of Contents. Gentry. Iss.1 Winter 1951. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives RB P.S Ge 260 No.1.
Since Gentry was a gentlemen’s “lifestyle” magazine and not solely based on fashion, the article “What does it mean to be a man?” captured its targeted reader by focusing on the broad picture of masculinity in the post-war era. The ten page exposé was rooted in literary thought, citing writers such as Chaucer and ideas of masculinity based upon Renaissance models of humanism. Undoubtedly, man was viewed as a high performance machine yet also have high levels of intellect. The article read: “A man should strive to have constant control over his body, his feelings, and his mind. Many of us have developed one part of ourselves and have neglected other parts, instead of striving to achieve a harmonious balance.” (Gentry 80-81). Male readers are challenged through the article to self-reflect on themselves as men but also simply as humans. While one might be quick to assume that an article on this topic from 1951 might be filled with ideals of hegemonic masculinity such as being able to fix a car, have an attractive wife, work your way up the corporate ladder, etc.; the argument instead mirrors a system of development similar to Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” leading to self-actualization. The article ends by stating: “To the extent that he cultivates his higher nature, to that extent can he fulfill his being on earth, and to that extent is he entitled to be called a Man.” (Gentry 82).
“What does it mean to be a Man?” Gentry. Iss.1 Winter 1951. p75. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives RB P.S Ge 260 No.1.
The Gentry magazine attempted to craft a mid-century version of a “Renaissance Man” who was adept at a wide variety of skills and more importantly who had wide-ranging knowledge (Bryant 20) or as Bourdieu would term “cultural capital” (Bourdieu 243). One of the areas where men were able to refine their life was through their fashion. Like most popular magazines, it was filled with of advertisements at the beginning of the copy. These included a wide variety of gifts and gadgets for the elite male, but a large portion were the latest fashions. What made Gentry unprecedented was that with most of its fashion advertisements it included real fabric swatches (Bryant 24). For time when nearly every working man was wearing a dress shirt of similar design, one of the major differences among men’s shirts was the quality and colour of the fabric making these swatches a great marketing strategy. It also gives the most accurate representation of the colours, which is unparalleled in a mainly black and white publication. In an example of an “Arrow” shirting advertisement, it is clear that the emphasis is not even on the shirt (Gentry 40). The emphasis is on the company, not the product. Arrow has a full page advertisement with two larger than average swatches. It could be assumed then that men reading this magazine knew what an “Arrow” dress shirt looked like or frankly what a dress shirt in general looked like. Fabric samples were used to differentiate levels of quality and also fashion. While the cut or style of an Arrow dress shirt might not change from year to year, the fabric, colour, and pattern might. These fabric swatches would unfortunately be short-lived and featured in only the first ten issues of the magazine before the United States Post Office (USPO) would prohibit them (Bryant 22).
Arrow advertisement with fabric samples. Gentry. Iss.1. Winter 1951. p40. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives RB P.S Ge 260 No.1.
In addition to fashion advertisements, Gentry also included a small editorial fashion section at the end of each issue called the “Portfolio of Gentry Fashions.” In the premiere issue, this portfolio was divided into overcoats (124), sports jackets (126), town suits (128), and fabrics (130). Unlike highly produced fashion shoots evident in contemporary male lifestyle magazines, Gentry included early “streetstyle” photographs of seemingly average men wearing each style and its variations. Each of these men are named, and while none of them might not have achieved celebrity star status, they were all members of the elite demography that Gentry was trying to speak to. The exception obviously is the “fabrics” page, which as one can guess by this point included several luxurious fabric swatches (Gentry 130). The other three pages of “fashion” include staples of men’s wardrobes with slight nuances for the 1951 gentry man. In particular, examining the page of “overcoats,” this garment is placed within the context of post-World War II development. For example, descriptions include: “A civilian adaption of the British officer’s “short-warm” outercoat worn by S. Bryce Wing.” (Gentry 128)
“Portfolio of Gentry Fashions: Overcoats.” Gentry. Iss.1. Winter 1951. p124. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives RB P.S Ge 260 No.1.
“Portfolio of Gentry Fashions: Fabrics.” Gentry. Iss.1. Winter 1951. p130. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives RB P.S Ge 260 No.1.“Alligator Rainwear.” Gentry. Iss.1. Winter 1951. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives RB P.S Ge 260 No.1.
The overcoat is an interesting subject and title of a recent contemporary opera (based on Nikolai Gogol’s 1842 play of the same name) produced by Canadian Stage in Toronto (co produced by Tapestry Opera and Vancouver Opera) (Canadian Stage). Morris Panych’s The Overcoat: A Musical Tailoring follows a man, Akakiy, as he struggles to make ends meet in his life until he replaces his tattered coat with a majestic new overcoat. In the first act while he wore rags, his boss did not even recognize him on the street. By the second act, his boss was inviting him over for a party as a result of his new investment in an overcoat. To Akakiy’s dismay, he laters loses his new overcoat in a late night street fight. Upon losing his coat, his life is essentially over and meaningless. The line “A coat makes a man. A man makes a coat,” rings true for this opera (Panych). The ending scene of the opera illustrated how Akakiy (and ultimately all of us) was trapped inside this social order. Although Akakiy was extremely hard working, he was not taken seriously until he dressed in a certain manner. This is the same for the Gentry man. He needs to have a an overcoat as part of his caveat to be taken seriously in the world. An “Alligator Rainwear” advertisement in the magazine makes the claim that this jacket is “the coat you will live in.” This denotes that the jacket will become a second skin. To be someone you need to be wearing this coat because “a coat makes a man. And a man makes a coat.” as sung in The Overcoat (Panych).
The Overcoat: A Musical Tailoring by Morris Panych and James Rolfe. Canadian Stage. 27 Mar – 14 Apr 2018. Toronto ON. Dahlia Katz photo.
The Overcoat: A Musical Tailoring by Morris Panych and James Rolfe. Canadian Stage. 27 Mar – 14 Apr 2018. Toronto ON. Dahlia Katz photo.
Undoubtedly a strong parallel between Gentry and The Overcoat is the discussion of class and as Bourdieu theorized, it can be examined in light of his theories of capital. For Akakiy in The Overcoat, it was clear he had minimal economic capital; however he was able to cut back on the little food and heat he had to replace his ragged jacket with a magnificent new one. This transaction gave him incredible amounts of cultural capital but, more importantly, social capital (Bourdieu 243-244). Now he was not teased at work, but celebrated and noticed by his boss and females for his overcoat (a symbol of economic capital in an of itself). Once he lost that coat, all his capital went away with it. The power of a coat is a similar concept that Karl Marx fought as he wrote his seminal text, Capital. Marx was forced to wear a coat to do research in the British Museum library but at the same time needed to pawn the coat repeatedly for money (Stallybrass 185). Marx would write how we fetishize commodities such as the coat by giving it invisible power and meaning (in this case to control society) (Stallybrass 185-6).
Akakiy with his new social capital as a result of economic investment. The Overcoat: A Musical Tailoring by Morris Panych and James Rolfe. Canadian Stage. 27 Mar – 14 Apr 2018. Toronto ON. Dahlia Katz photo.
Examining issues of class and capital with Gentry, one does not have to move far from the name itself. The term gentry denotes a man of an elite and wealthy class that owns land. According to Marsha Bryant, Gentry’s readership was based predominately on subscribers as this magazine was hard to find at local newsstands (Bryant 21). She wrote that most subscribers were referred by other subscribers via inserts in the magazine (21). This form of referral and subscription for the magazine is a clear example of requiring social capital that Bourdieu wrote about (Bourdieu 248). One essentially needed to know someone to be able to get a copy of the magazine each quarter. Prior to its launch, there was an advertisement for Gentry in the more mainstreamed New Yorker magazine trying to attract “The Top 100,000 Thinking Men in this Country” (Heller). The advertisement would continue to discuss how it was attempting to attract the most innovative thinkers. What the magazine was trying to do was spread this elite level of cultural capital (Bourdieu 244). Unlike other popular male magazines that would come in the 1950s such as Playboy or Esquire, Gentry tried to educate through thoughtful literature on why drawing is the most masculine art form or how to build a Finnish bath in one’s own home (Bryant 22).
“How to Build your own Finnish Bath.” Gentry. Iss.1 Winter 1951. pp51-55. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives RB P.S Ge 260 No.1.
“Portfolio of Early American Automobiles” Gentry. Iss.1 Winter 1951. pp56-62. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives RB P.S Ge 260 No.1.
“The Day Starts the Night Before.” (tips on how to get a better night’s sleep). Gentry. Iss.1 Winter 1951. pp63-64. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives RB P.S Ge 260 No.1.
Majoram sample. Gentry. Iss.1. Winter 1951. p94. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives RB P.S Ge 260 No.1.
“Japanese versus Chinese Viewpoint in Art.” (complete with removable colour plates). Gentry. Iss.1 Winter 1951. pp95-98. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives RB P.S Ge 260 No.1.
On the surface, Gentry might appear to be a lifestyle magazine that perpetuates ideals of masculinity while promoting growing contemplation in Post-War America; however it is more than that. Its readers were educated and came from a high economic class, and that level of men demand a certain level of thinking and literature to create greater cultural capital (Bourdieu 243). Gentry was not just for any man who had money; they also had to have high levels of embodied cultural capital and the Gentry way of thinking. In comparison to a popular women’s magazine of the time, Vogue charged its readers $7.50 for an annual subscription of twenty issues (or $0.50/single issue) (Vogue 113), while Gentry charged $8 for its four issue annual subscription (or $2/single issue) (Gentry 24). Marsha Bryant included one subscribers quotation that said: “Your impeccable taste and high artistic standards combine to make Gentry the ne plus ultra of current publications.” (Bryant 19). While it provoked the thinking of these elite men of the 1950s, it also commanded how they look in their average day lives with staples such as the overcoat to make the ultimate Gentry man.
Obviously magazines have shifted from this transfer of information, thinking, or “cultural capital” like Gentry to promoting mass consumption from the 1950s to today, but is there a resurgence in magazines to give readers more than just commodities? (especially with the rise of niche magazines that are sometimes more book-like?)
Works Cited
Bourdieu, Pierre. “Forms of Capital.” Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. Greenwood, 1986, pp241-258.
Bryant, Marsha. “Gentry Modernism: Cultural Connoisseurship and Midcentury Masculinity, 1951-1957.” Popular Modernism and Its Legacies: From Pop Literature to Video Games. Scott Ortolano (ed.). Bloomsbury, 2018, pp19-44.
Canadian Stage. “The Overcoat: A Musical Tailoring.” https://www.canadianstage.com/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=overcoat. Accessed 05 April 2018.
Gentry. Winter 1951. Issue 1. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives RB P.S Ge 260 No.1
Heller, Steven. Gentry. http://modernism101.com/products-page/art-photo/gentry-nos-1-22-a-complete-set-winter-1951-spring-1957-new-york-reporter-publications-william-c-segal-publisher/#.WsE5wWYZPde. Accessed 29 Mar 2018.
Panych, Morris and James Rolfe. The Overcoat: A Musical Tailoring. Canadian Stage with Tapestry Opera and Vancouver Opera. March 27-April 14, 2018. Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto ON.
Stallybrass, Peter. “Marx’s Coat.” Border Fetishisms: Material Objects in Unstable Spaces. Routledge, 1998, pp183-207.
Vogue. 01 October 1951. Vol. 118. No. 6. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum Library and Archives RB P.S. Vo 140 v.118: no.6. 1951: Oct.1.
Bygone are the days of women and men wearing extravagant hats; or so it may seem. Hats inspired by the victory of La Belle Poule and popularized by Marie Antoinette in the 1700s (shown right) would be considered outrageous walking down a street in 2018. Even simple hats such as the pillbox popularized by Jackie Kennedy in the 1960s (show below right) appear to be out of period movie. Does that mean then that no one is wearing hats anymore?
Coiffure a l’Independance ou le Triomphe de la liberte. ca. 1780s. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/will-bashor/marie-antoinettes-crazies_b_4109620.html
Kennedys Arrive at Dallas. 22 Nov 1963. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kennedys_arrive_at_Dallas_11-22-63_crop_headshot.jpg
What was once a common part of everyone’s outfit (both male and female) has now been relegated to something most commonly worn only to baseball games or to survive harsh winters. The exception would be in Great Britain, where it appears that millinery is surviving but only really for the upper classes. Born at a time when millinery was still the norm, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (born 1926) is keeping the accessory alive through her and her family’s fashion choices. Notable British milliner, Philip Treacy credits the Queen for “[keeping] hats alive in the imagination of people all over the world” (qtd. in Greenstreet “Q&A: Philip Treacy). Often those in the Royal family and those going to events hosted by the Royal family are expected to wear a hat. Often it is even explicit within the dress code whether a hat should be worn (as seen on the Royal Ascot website). It is worth noting that hats are only required for the “Royal, Queen Anne, and Village Enclosures” not the “Windsor Enclosure,” which one can assume is where tickets are the cheapest and not filled with the upper classes (Royal Ascot website). Consequently, we often associate hats with Her Majesty’s garden parties at Buckingham Palace, royal weddings, and the Royal Ascot—all places for the upper classes.
Queen Elizabeth II. 08 May 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_II_greets_NASA_GSFC_employees,_May_8,_2007_edit.jpgRoyal Ascot 2017: Ascot Hats that Make the Cut. 21 June 2017. Elle UK. http://www.elleuk.com/fashion/what-to-wear/news/g31858/royal-ascot-hats-that-make-the-cut/
Does this mean then that no one wears hats unless they are at royal events, at a sports game, or in the cold?
Kathleen Lonergan Kubas: Obituary. 29 Nov. 2008. Toronto Star. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thestar/obituary.aspx?pid=120715114
The answer to that is not an easy one since one rarely sees someone wearing a “fashionable” hat (opposed to a practical hat such as a winter toque or a police hat) today yet the millinery industry is still alive. One of the people keeping millinery alive in the late twentieth and into the twenty-first century was undoubtedly Kathleen Kubas (born 1938)—affectionately known as Toronto’s “Hat Lady” until her death in 2008 (“Kubas Obituary” Toronto Star). Fortunately, her extensive millinery collection of over 300 hats lives on within Ryerson’s Fashion Research Collection. Her collection featured a wide variety of hats purchased throughout her lifetime of living in Toronto including some even from the early 2000s. These hats were designed by a variety of milliners including some Canadian and some from top “designer” milliners such as Stephen Jones and Philip Treacy (Mida “The Kathleen Kubas Collection”).
In closely investigating several of the hats using Mida and Kim’s methodology put forward in The Dress Detective, it was clear that these were in fact worn objects and not just a collection. Although initially, they may all seem to be in pristine condition; the fronts of the sweat bands (an inner band running the circumference of the hat) in most of the hats have stains or the remains of makeup from her forehead. This may be an obvious sign of wear, but with such a large collection it indicates that Kubas was regularly wearing all of her hats. This wear can be seen in the images below.
Sign of wear detail. FRC2009.01.695. Personal Photograph.
Sign of wear detail. FRC2009.01.570. Personal Photograph.
Sign of wear detail. FRC2009.01.569. Personal Photograph.
Why did people like Kathleen Kubas wore high-end millinery (and other continue) when hats have fallen out of the norm, especially in a place like Toronto?
The decline of the hat came alongside a slow change in social order following World War II that saw more women entering the workplace, a place not demanding a hat (Debo 27). Eventually it was just upper class left not working and still wearing hats, such as the Royal Family. Therefore, mainly high end milliners remained and could thrive, making the hat a luxury item, like those created by Stephen Jones or Philip Treacy. If the hat today then is a luxury item worn by women, then one might assume that Thorstein Veblen’s theories on conspicuous consumption would apply. Veblen theorized that fashion is used as a tool to show off one’s wealth or one’s place in society. He wrote “it has in the course of economic development become the office of the woman to consume vicariously for the head of the household; and her apparel is contrived with this object in view” (Veblen 344). If hats have high price tags attached, then all upper class women today should be wearing hats to show off their wealth. As previously examined the Royal Family and women attending the Royal Ascot are prime examples of this; however it does seem to fit all women with wealth. For example, the millinery department that once existed within Holt Renfrew (BAK “Holt Renfrew & Company LTD.”), a Canadian high-end department store where Kubas purchased many of her hats, is no longer there, suggesting that luxury female consumers in Toronto are not purchasing millinery to the same extent that they once were. Veblen’s theory appears to be a semi-legitimate argument for wearing hats; however it does not seem to fully capture why people still wear hats in the twenty-first century.
Although Kubas was clearly able to afford designer hats, such as those produced by Jones or Treacy, her occupation as a grade 1 school teacher (as indicated in her obituary) does not necessarily give her the same economic position that Veblen was writing about. Following Riello’s methodology of material culture, he wrote that by studying the object we are not looking at the object itself nor theories, but we are looking at the different meanings that objects can take on (Riello 6). The hat itself can be studied as a work of art, but as earlier indicated, it gives us a larger picture of who Kathleen Kubas was. As a former model and actress, Ms. Kubas remained a creative individual expressing herself through the garments that she wore. Studying the hat with this methodology provides an alternative narrative that people other than the Royal family wore hats throughout the last half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. Likewise, Bethan Bide wrote: “Worn over a long long period of time, these garments speak of lingering and changing experiences rather than representing the brevity of a passing fashion trend or a single occasion of wear” (Bide 453). Similar to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Kubas would have begun wearing hats at a young age when they were still fairly popular among the middle and upper classes. They study of her hats prove the fact that women like Kubas continued to wear these objects even though they had fallen out of mainstream fashion. They were a part of a complex system that made up the individual wearer’s identity.
Who then, is wearing millinery still today, and why?
To answer this question, one truly has to look at the hats themselves. Looking at an example of a black straw, women’s “top hat” (FRC 2009.01.12) from Kathleen Kubas collection at the FRC designed by one of the top milliners of today, Philip Treacy, one can see it is a statement hat. This object is variation of a top hat since it breaks many of the traditional rules for this style. It is made out of straw not felt; it is made for a female head not a male head; it is asymmetrical in the shape and size of the brim as well as the crown of the hat; it has a slight tear drop shaped crown referencing a fedora style; and it features a large assemblage of feathers on one side. Treacy masterfully updated the tradition of a top hat in this contemporary hat.
Philip Treacy. Black straw womenswear top hat. FRC2009.01.695
Although filled with these unusual nuances that make the hat unique, it is truly the large bouquet of black feathers that attract the viewer’s eye to it. It is a collection of small plumage feathers with long stripped feathers giving the bouquet a sense of drama and extravagance. The stripped feathers twirl and extend in what seems to be a variety of directions, though upon close examination, it is clear that they are precisely placed within the bouquet (pictured below).
Philip Treacy. Black straw womenswear top hat. FRC2009.01.695
When one views this hat within the Kathleen Kubas collection, it does not feel out of place even though it may be slightly eccentric. All of her hats have this element of whimsy and theatricality, quite often through the use of feathers or flowers against shapes that are simple yet slightly unique. When viewed within the oeuvre of Philip Treacy, this hat does not stand out as being extravagantly eccentric. His hats truly often balance this line of simplicity and tradition with slightly nuanced variations (such as the shape of the brim or the colour) with crazy eccentricities and unique features. Although this hat was made over ten years ago, in his current AW17 collection of hats, similar hats can be found today such as hat OC368 (pictured below right).
Philip Treacy. Black straw womenswear top hat. FRC2009.01.695.
Philip Treacy. OC 368. AW17. https://www.philiptreacy.co.uk/en/collection/aw17/OC-368
Kubas’ examples of Philip Treacy’s hats definitely fit within the “safe” or “ordinary” realm of his work. In fact, what Treacy is more known for is his completely over the top hats that truly act as pieces of art or sculpture. As a notable British millinery, Treacy has obviously designed hats for every member of the Royal Family, but noteworthy hats include the one worn by Camilla Parker Bowles at her wedding to HRH the Prince of Wales or the one worn by Princess Beatrice at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (both pictured below).
Princess Beatrice at Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding. 29 Apr. 2011. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2013961/Princess-Beatrices-Royal-Wedding-hat-Philip-Treacy-defends-it.html
Hats such as these are undeniably large statements. There are no practical benefits to wearing one of these hats. As for the case with the FRC’s Treacy top hat, an interior tag reminds wearers not to wear the hat in the rain because of the delicate nature of the feathers and shape of the straw. Instead, these hats are pure decoration and ornamentation. They are works of art for the head. They reflect a certain type of wearer—one who can afford this luxury item and is not afraid to stand out on the street. In her celebration of life ceremony, Kubas’ friends wrote “hats reflected her personality — extravagant, yet elegant and fashionable” (qtd. in Mida “The Kathleen Kubas Collection”). The hat in the twenty-first century is the highest accent of fashion. It tops off any fashionable look while still giving an indication of one’s taste and status. Geert Bruloot, a long time collector of Stephen Jones’ millinery, said “We collect fine art purely for ourselves…. Collecting Stephen Jones hats comes from an entirely different perspective, to show them, to share them with others” (qtd. in Debo 27). Similar sentiments could be expressed about Treacy and his millinery. Twenty-first century milliners have become fashion artists. Ellen Goldstein, accessories professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York, claims her millinery students work to “create a sculptural piece of art” (Zelevansky “Hats off to Modern Milliners”).
Philip Treacy in the Studio. 11 Nov 1998.https://www.npr.org/2013/03/16/174420835/hatmaker-philip-treacys-favorite-hat-and-many-more
Naomi Campbell, Royal Ascot. 06 June 2002. .https://www.npr.org/2013/03/16/174420835/hatmaker-philip-treacys-favorite-hat-and-many-more
The twenty-first century hat has evolved. These hats are art, but art for the street. While hats may be continued to be exclusively attached to women from the Royal family or from upper classes, studying hats from Kathleen Kubas’ collection prove that other women still continued to wear hats. These women were not only fashionable but also purveyors of artistic fashion. That is why some women still chose to cover their head with a hat.
BAK. “Holt Renfrew & Company, Ltd.” The Department Store Museum. Apr 2011. http://www.thedepartmentstoremuseum.org/2010/06/holt-renfrew-co-ltd-toronto-ontario.html. Accessed 23 Feb 2018.
Bide, Bethan. “Signs of Wear: Encountering Memory in the Worn Materiality of a Museum Fashion Collection.” Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body, and Culture. 2017. 21:4, pp. 449-476.
Davies, Kevin. Philip Treacy. Phaidon, 2013.
Debo, Kaat. “Stephen Jones & the Accent of Fashion.” Stephen Jones & The Accent of Fashion. Lanoo Publishers, 2010.
Greenstreet, Rosanna. “Q&A: Philip Treacy.” The Guardian. 16 Aug 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/aug/16/philip-treacy-q-and-a-interview. Accessed 14 Feb 2018
“Kathleen Lonergan Kubas: Obituary.” Toronto Star. 29 Nov 2008. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thestar/obituary.aspx?pid=120715114. Accessed 08 Feb 2018.
Mida, Ingrid and Alexandra Kim. The Dress Detective: A Practical Guide to Object Based Analysis in Fashion. Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.
Mida, Ingrid. “The Kathleen Kubas Collection.” Ryerson Fashion Research Collection. 9 Sept 2013. https://ryerson-fashion-research-collection.com/2013/09/09/the-kathleen-kubas-collection/. Accessed 08 Feb 2018.
“Philip Treacy for Camilla Parker Bowles.” YouTube, uploaded by Victoria and Albert Museum, 13 Dec 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diBIaFiSN48.
Philip Treacy London. https://philiptreacy.co.uk/en. Accessed 08 Feb 2018.
Riello, Giorgio. “The Object of Fashion: Methodological Approaches to the History of Fashion.” Journal of Aesthetics and Culture. Vol. 3. 2011, pp. 1-9.
Royal Ascot. “Style Guide.” https://www.ascot.co.uk/Royal-Ascot. Accessed 25 Feb 2018.
Veblen, Thorstein. “Dress as an Expression of the Pecuniary Culture.” Fashion Theory: A Reader edited by Malcolm Barnard, Routledge, 2007, pp. 339-346.
Zelevansky, Ellen. “Hats off to Modern Milliners.” T Magazine. 28 April 2015. https://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/28/female-milliners/. Accessed 14 Feb 2018.
