Pillbox hat

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Jacqueline Kennedy with a pillbox hat on November 22, 1963

The pillbox hat is a stiff, oval to round hat without a brim that is flattened at the top.

As a variant of the basic hat shape, the pillbox hat has a long history and is the headgear for traditional costumes in many regions of the world . In the second half of the 19th century it also became part of the uniform of some military units. It increasingly developed into a fashionable women's hat in the 1930s and was particularly popular in the 1960s. As a woman's hat, it is usually of one color, made of wool, velvet, silk or fur and is usually adorned without any further ornamentation or with no more than a single hat pin, a single gemstone or a pearl.

The English term pillbox for this hat shape is derived from the round or oval pill boxes that were common in North America in the 19th century.

development

Members of a Nepalese Gurkha regiment, 1896
Princess Hanako Hitachi with pillbox hat. 1965

A forerunner of the pillbox hat is the birett , a stiff, brimmed hat that, unlike the pillbox hat, was not round but square. Christian clergymen have worn it as a sign of their office since the 13th century. During the Renaissance , modified forms were also common in women's fashion. These stiff, flat caps were usually made of silk or velvet, embroidered with gold thread, and decorated with beads. They were often worn in conjunction with a veil. Hats of this shape were and are also worn by various ethnic groups around the world as headgear by men and / or women as part of traditional costumes. Ethnic groups to which this applies can be found in Greece, Turkey, Albania, Montenegro, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Nepal, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and the Miao , an ethnic group in southern China.

This hat shape was adopted as part of military uniforms in various parts of the world in the 19th century. Usually the pillbox hat worn in the military had a chin strap. It was often carried sitting at an angle on the side of the head and pushed far into the forehead. Starting from the military, it was also adopted for civilian work uniforms in the service industry - in particular the bellboys of upscale and luxurious hotels were equipped with these hats, which typically still had a chin strap. This uniform also made it very popular through an advertisement by the tobacco company Philip Morris , which used the figure of a hotel bellboy dressed in this way to advertise its cigarettes from 1930 to 1960.

The point in time at which this hat shape was also taken up in women's fashion cannot be precisely defined. Gilbert Adrian (* 1903 ; † 1959 ), who was one of the best known and most influential costume designers in Hollywood under the name Adrian , designed such a brimless hat for Greta Garbo , which she wore alongside other hats in the film The Colorful Veil , which premiered in 1934 . The hat was sitting straight on, but it was still pulled far over the forehead.

The pillbox hat became increasingly common in women's fashion in the 1950s - it was particularly suitable for women who preferred a simple, elegant style. The fashionable rise took place parallel to the growing popularity of the Chanel costume , which quickly found numerous wearers, especially in North America, from the mid-1950s. However, it did not develop into a classic in fashion history until the early 1960s. During this period, the pillbox hat became known worldwide as a fashion accessory for journalist Jacqueline Kennedy , who, as the wife of John F. Kennedy , was the American first lady from January 1961 to November 1963 . Kennedy, who attracted a lot of media attention and was considered one of the best dressed women in the world, owned numerous different colored hats of this shape. She usually wore them in a comparatively small version that was pushed far from her face. It was attached to the teased hair with pins and elastic bands. The designer of their hats was mostly the American fashion designer Halston .

Pillbox hats are still worn as a hat in a civilian work uniform. It is part of the professional uniform of flight attendants at several airlines . It is also often worn on formal occasions. Carla Bruni wore a pillbox hat in 2008 when she made one of her first public appearances as the wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy . Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge wore a red pillbox hat during an official visit to Australia.

Trivia

One of Jacqueline Kennedy's pillbox hats
  • In the song Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat, Bob Dylan comments on the wearer of such a hat, who wears the hat, which is actually associated with simple elegance, but which is made of a material with a striking leopard pattern.
  • The clothing store of Deutsche Lufthansa is called Pillbox, since the hat has been part of the uniforms of the flight attendants employed by this company again since 2005.

literature

  • Howard Gutner: Gowns by Adrian. The MGM Years, 1928-1941. Harry N. Abrams, New York NY 2001, ISBN 0-8109-0898-0 .
  • Andrew Tucker, Tamsin Kingswell: Fashion . Prestel Verlag, Munich 2000, ISBN

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ^ A b c Chico, Beverly: Hats and Headwear around the World: A Cultural Encyclopedia . ABC-CLIO , 2013, ISBN 9781610690638 , pp. 378-79.
  2. ↑ Christine Waidenschlager: Fashion Art Works - 1715 to today . Ed .: National Museums in Berlin - Museum of Applied Arts. Michael Imhof, Petersberg 2014, ISBN 978-3-7319-0165-5 , p. 276 .
  3. ↑ Prominent accessories: Jackie Kennedy's Pillbox-Hut , sueddeutsche.de, accessed on September 14, 2016
  4. ↑ Jacqueline Kennedy: A Hat Goes Around the World , Süddeutsche from May 17, 2010, accessed on September 14, 2016
  5. ↑ Flight attendant network , accessed on September 14, 2016