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    Hats Randolph Street Market

    Hats…Hats…Hats… Always Classic, Always New

    FASHION TREND REPORT EXCLUSIVELY FOR RANDOLPH STREET MARKET BY NENA IVON, nenasnotes

    Ladies wearing their individual style for all seasons. One of the many ways we can express our individual style is by wearing glorious millinery. Spring has finally sprung so let’s take a look at a brief history of HATS, shall we!

    The popularity of millinery supposedly began with Marie Antoinette’s dressmaker… the milliner, Rose Bertin (a story unto itself) and has continued to this day with Royals around the world wearing fanciful hats and inspiring designers and all of us to follow the in and out trend of wearing stylist millinery.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Then…Marie Antoinette

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Now…Queen Elizabeth II

    Charles Frederick Worth considered by many The Father of Haute Couture dressed the high society of the mid to late 19th Century including France’s Empress Eugenie. Bonnets were the style of the day Worth perfected the “hat”.

    Considering himself quite the dandy he appears in this portrait with an artist’s beret a la Rembrandt!!

    Charles Frederick Worth

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    A Worth walking costume…

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Empress Eugenie

    Fast forward to the early 20th Century and a House that remains in business to this day….Chanel, and its founder Gabrielle Chanel who began her design career as a milliner in the South of France and Paris.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel in front of her millinery shop and a hat from her first collections.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    And one of my favorite portraits of her in the 1930’s…

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    All of society wore hats at the time…men and women always in the latest fashion…here a couple strolling the Avenue….then Audrey Hepburn as Elisa Doolittle in the breataking Ascot Scene from the My Fair Lady film costumed by the genius, Cecil Beaton.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Thinking of parading down the Avenue in your Easter bonnet….just take a clue from yet another movie, the glorious Easter Parade…here Astaire and Garland all decked out in the finery for THE day of all days to don your chapeau. Back in the day truly through the 1960’s we always wore hats (I, for many years was a judge at Chicago hotels Easter Bonnet contests, great fun and very competitive) why did we stop wearing hats….more on that a bit later…

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    The 1920’s….and the cloche, easy to wear with the new short bobbed hair and easy to wear today.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Flirty, fun, fashionable fitting in perfectly with the emergence of the independent woman.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Definitely styles you can find at the monthly Randolph Street Market.

    Talk about a perfectly turned out wardrobe…the charming Phryne Fisher (and Jack always in his fedora…something about a man in a fedora…much preferred to a baseball cap!!) in the Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries TV series…to die for…oops a pun!!

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Another HauteCouture Designer who did fascinating hats perfect for the 1930’s Elsa Schiaparelli….all manner of Surrealistic creations many in collaboration with Salvador Dali…such as the shoe hat and, of course, the lobster atop madams coiffeur!

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Isabella Blow In Phillip Tracey’s Lobster headpiece.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Lady Gaga in her Lobster fascinator…

    What changed and why did women and for that matter men stop wearing hats…certainly women’s hair became bouffant and the styles of the times didn’t fit the “do’s”. Life became more casual. Enter the pillbox made popular by Jackie Kennedy, considered American Royalty….you can see a trend in this post. Hatted by the extremely popular Halston who had his start in Chicago and discovered by The Chicago Daily News Fashion Editor, Peg Zwecker, in his small boutique within the Basil Beauty Salon in the walkway between the Ambassador Hotels. Halston rocketed to fame when New York’s Bergdorf Goodman gave him his own boutique within its Fifth Avenue store and Barbra Streisand did her televised show from the Store wearing all the glorious hats. Catch it on YouTube it is truly spectacular.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Peg Zwecker with a very young Halston, of course wearing a Halston creation.

    Halston in Bergdorf’s Millinery Salon.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Jacqueline Kennedy in Halston’s pillbox (he said he fitted the hats on himself because he and Jackie had the same head size…just saying!) and Kate in her version of the style…each looking modern and pulled together.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Another milliner was based in Chicago (there are several outstanding milliners currently creating in Chicago, that’s another post for sure!) and the Chicago History Museum’s Costume Collection has a huge collection of his whimsical creations. Benjamin Green-Field aka Bes-Ben was who the chic of Chicago (as well as Nationally) wore for years. You can always identify a Bes-Ben outrageous piece, if you find one treasure it…they are very special.Check RSM vendors…maybe you will get lucky!!!

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    This photo by the extraordinary Victor Skrebneski hangs in the Chicago History Museum.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    A charmer…love it!!!!

    A fabulous book on a huge tradition by the women who wear hats to perfection…..here some examples of that tradition that lives on exquisitely…

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    The two milliners who work closely with Haute Couture designers as well as celebrities…Philip Tracey and Stephen Jones, in my opinion, both creative geniuses.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    With his (and Alexander McQueen’s) muse, Isabella Blow.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Princess Beatrice in her unique choice.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    For an Alexander McQueen’s Haute Couture Show…..and on the cover of The New Yorker after McQueen’s death. Stunning…

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Stephen Jones…worked with John Galliano for Christian Dior Haute Couture as well as many private clients.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Meagan wearing one of her many Stephen Jones pieces.

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Two more books on the subject…

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    While I don’t think any of us will have 500 hats in our wardrobe they do add a dash of style, a pulled together look to complete outfit..

    A spectacular Louis Vuitton hat box to “chicly” store your treasures… another collectible to be found…perhaps RSM…look and you will find…

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    I am seeing a resurgence of hats on ladies and gentlemen ….think fascinators, the fabulous hats for Ascot and our Kentucky Derby and the many hat luncheons both in Chicago, around the country and Internationally…the annual Service Club of Chicago Event springs to mind where ladies and gentlemen don their best chapeaux. I have just given you a very small picture of the world of hats…perhaps there will be a part two next Spring and a continuation on nenasnotes…who can tell!!!! To me hats are as welcome a sight as the glimpse of the first robin!!!!!

    Randolph Street Market Hats

    Something for me…I think so!!!!

    —–
    by Nena Ivon
    www.nenasnotes.com
    www.facebook.com/Nena Ivon
    www.instagram.com/nenasnotes

    All photos from Pinterest photo credits unknown.

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    Bergdorf Goodman Chanel chicago history museum fashion Halston hats independent woman Marie Antoinette nena ivon Phryne Fisher Princess Beatrice randolph street market trends vintage

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