1780s Continental Army Gainsborough/Portrait Hat

Guys, millinery is hard.

The Huntington Beach Historical Society's annual American Revolution event was back in February, and I'd been planning to attend in costume for a long time (definitively since I finished my chemise gowns in August, but theoretically even since last year's event). I had last year's French Revolution Zombaes dress and undergarments as the base, but I needed new accessories for a bit more historical realism and less theatricality. A hat was a major part of that.

I used a lot of historical portraits and illustrations for design inspiration. Dames a la Mode's Hats From History is a great source, and this portrait in particular was one of my main starting points.

Abigail Adams Smith, 1784 via Hats From History

It took me a long time to come up with a theme and color scheme that wasn't too theme-y. I was making this for a colonial American impression.  But red, white, and blue gets real match-y real fast. I ultimately went with Continental blue, buff/white, and gold. Classic, aesthetic, and patriotic without being PATRIOTIC.

I used American Duchess's Amazing Craft Hat (Part 1 and Part 2) as a reference for construction, starting with a straw craft/gardening/? hat and reshaping the brim to give it that curve in front and back.

By chance as I was thinking about fabric options, I found navy blue silk track pants (???) and a black tulle-lined evening gown for dirt cheap at a vintage store sale. So I cut large circles from the silk and both the light and heavy tulle and stitched them together, gathered it, and glued it to the crown. (I chose not to cut the crown off the hat itself so the fabric would have a little more support if needed.)

Like actual real 100% silk track pants

  I had zero ribbon, so with my Continental theme in mind I got a few blues, gold, and off-white.

The red was an alternate waist sash idea that got scrapped and returned.

I layered some of the ribbons together and stitched/gathered those to create a trim for the crown, and did black bias tape around the brim edge.

This was the ribbon testing phase. On the hat itself I liked the right side with wider blue ribbon better, but the left looked better when worn with the white dress.

I was going to get some hatpins but ran short on time, so I did some ribbon ties at the sides instead. It's a little fussy and deformed the hat shape a little, but there's (kind of) documentation for it and it kept things secure. For future upgrades, I'll definitely be getting hatpins and maybe leaving the ties just as security but not having any real tension on them.

And that was the bulk of it done.

With my French Revolution Zombae wig, though I didn't actually wear them together.

In action at The Revolution

Just in the past few weeks I busted the hat back out for some upgrades.

Part of the reason I left it plain in February was because I couldn't decide on feathers or extra ribbon (bows, cockade, etc.). So I finally figured out a grouping of feathers I liked and made up a neat little beribboned cockade on the fly.

The cockade is a scrap of the same silk as the crown. The thin ribbon is the same from the trim around the crown, and the wider ribbon is the same as the ties. The button was from the stash.

I also tacked down the center top of the silk crown to the straw beneath to combat some problems with wind billowing the lightweight fabric too much. And I found some short hatpins in the stash. I still want a single long one that can go straight through the crown, but one of these on each side is fairly secure (if a little fiddly).

It's still not quite right to me somehow. Maybe it's still not frilly or ostentatious or large enough. But it's definitely an improvement and I'm really loving it.

Hopefully I'll get some more decent photos of this thing being worn at an outing next week.