JPK Huson 1863
Brev. Brig. Gen'l
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2012
- Location
- Central Pennsylvania
From Godey's 1862. Hat, bottom right may or may not have a deceased bird preceding the wearer through doors while top row, middle seems to have stuffed hummingbird struggling to free itself from bounteous velvet. Dead stuff on our heads was high fashion.
Fashion around 1863 took a weird turn. Disclaimer here is the outrageously massive, improbably ornate head gear we see and get such a kick out of didn't appear until a good few decades post war. We've had threads on them, as delightful as they are they were worn by women either not born by the time of the war or those who were children. That's not to say we didn't take a fancy to some well, plain old odd stuff. Then we wore it on our heads.
If a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, how much would one on your head be worth? That's fashion math.
I'm old enough to remember the odd fox's foot dangling from an elderly woman's fur collared coat and quite a few improbable pheasant's wings glued between a straw hat brim,a bunch of wax cherries and a curling fern. On yes, an Easter bonnet. Sunrise service in 1965 or so was wonderful for a kid. Ours were just white straw, curled brim, flat, fat bow behind and the obligatory satin ribbon hanging down your back. Remember thinking I'd have to wait a lot of years for dead game birds much less cherries.
Proving men do indeed notice what we wear, article also proves we have to get inventive before they do. Then they make fun of it. Have to say this fellow is fall-down funny. You just know he was relegated to the back pew, wife 15 pews away, that Easter Sunday. Hats are hats, don't mess.
1863. " ... between two flower beds of less than half an acre each... "
It really was a ' thing '. We were just asking for it. " Coiffure La Reine " just makes the corpse you're wearing in French a more expensive corpse.