Last evening, amidst street fireworks, my neighbor and her teenage daughter visited to wish me happy Diwali, bringing these favorite treats, one I think milk based, one ghee based, both lovely. Lucky me!
And while I was looking for the backstrap loom parts which I found, back in the main weaving box, but no yarn, I came across this huge art bag which I painted way back when I was taking classes.
That pocket is big enough for a large drawing pad, and my board easily fitted into the bag. But since I lost height, I can't carry the bag on my shoulder without its trailing on the ground. The straps can't be shortened and still fit my shoulder. So it's being picked up today by, I hope, a taller person.
I was reading Barbara Pym yesterday, and noticed how often she refers to hats, and how they establish the social standing of the wearer. They've long been a social marker of a niche use I'm familiar with, that of showing who's the hostess, who's the visitor or worker.
Pym's daily cleaning ladies/cooks wear their hats on the job, plus apron, no confusion with visitors who always keep their hats on.
In the wonderful Evelyn Dunbar's documentary paintings, if you don't know her, check her out, commissioned by the British government in WW2, you see scenes of life for women in 1940s Britain.
There's the women's Land Army, working the farms while regular farmworkers are serving abroad, and ladies (clear demarcation between women and ladies) at home, knitting and sewing in working parties for the war effort.
You can see who's the hostess -- in your own home you didn't wear your hat, and in other people's homes you kept your hat in. In my mother's generation, this was even observed among relatives. When her sisters, my aunts, visited, they hung on to their hats!
I still remember them, felt with jaunty felt bows or rosettes in the then fashionable colors, bottle green or wine. Hats were part of your presentation and you didn't even go to the corner shop without putting on your hat. Pym points out the disdain shown by characters in my current Jane and Prudence, at Jane, a vicar's wife, going out hatless, even visiting parishioners, shocking.
Nowadays if you wear a hat other than to keep warm, it's a statement. Mine are only practical though.
Happy day, everyone, hatted or not!
You are getting some good treats. Someone will love the bag, lovely. I used to wear a hat all the time. I still do but now it's baseball caps!
ReplyDeleteYes, they're the current universal hat.
DeleteWhen I was young, women still wore hats to church but that was about it. And even that tradition was dying out.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what happened to the milliners. Women do still dress up for Sunday services at black churches though, very stylish.
DeleteIn the Detroit, Michigan area, where there is a large and prosperous black influence, there is at least one milliner, if not more, who cater to their black customers with absolutely fabulous hats. One has been featured on local media for her works of art. Black church goers really love their hats.
DeleteYou have great neighbours, Boud.
ReplyDeleteI do, very lucky.
DeleteI remember the one time I met my biological father as an adult, he said that back in his day, men put their hats on to take the trash out.
ReplyDeleteFunny to think that something as engraved in stone as the rules for wearing hats was for both men and women, that they have now completely disappeared. Except of course, for royalty and other very fancy people.
They say that John Kennedy was a big part of American men's giving up hats. He refused to wear them in an era when men did.
DeleteI had never thought about ladies wearing their hats so much and when and where. I do remember hats in church, and I didn't notice when that stopped -- maybe in the late 50s or early 60s?
ReplyDeleteI also wonder why men's hat rules were so different. Probably something to do with St Paul and his opinions.
When I first started wearing caps, early this century, vis a present from my daughter, I was reluctant to wear it to a bar type of venue for breakfast. My daughter reminded me of the century. But to this day I still would doff my cap in a restaurant. Not a coffee shop, though.
I had worn caps a bit previously sometimes in summers, but it wasn't like it is now. But I have never taken to baseball-style caps -- except on baseball fields when I was coaching.
St Paul has a lot to answer for! Funny that it seems ok to keep on a baseball hat indoors, but not other styles.
DeleteI love Barbara Pym novels and so enjoyed your references to her hat wearing characters. I occasionally wear a beret, but since I now have to wear glasses I fear I have the look of Pearl from Last of The Summer wine !!
ReplyDeleteAlison in Wales x
Too funny! When I wear a beret and sunglasses, I look like an old lady who fancies herself as Mata Hari!
DeleteMy mother never went anywhere without a hat on. I can't remember if the hat came off when she was visiting, I just remember she always wore it outside. And I love Evelyn Dunbar, but as happens to me, I had forgotten about her. I love her paintings so much that if I were younger and not about to start getting rid of a lot of my stuff I may have bought a framed print as they sold them on the online site.
ReplyDeleteAnother Dunbar fan!
DeleteWonderful goodies.
ReplyDeleteI do wish we would go back to wearing hats
Cathy
Maybe we can start a hat wearing community!
DeleteWhen I was in grammar school our history teacher was called Mrs Brynmor-Jones. "Not Brynymor, that's the road. And you don't have to tell me I'm still wearing my hat. I always wear it." I can see her now. She was a vicar's wife too.
ReplyDeleteThe Compleat Hat Wearer.
DeleteI didn’t know about hats. Coming from simple peasant stock I doubt they even had hats. Unless it was one to keep warm while working in the fields. I do know the women would use a scarf over their heads. Especially if going to church on Sundays. Although that’s now well and truly gone
ReplyDeleteVery interesting to see how other cultures used clothing
Women have pretty much always used head coverings, sometimes to cover their hair ( men might get too excited, dear) sometimes for protection from the weather. Sometimes a cap worn indoors, back in the 18-19th c.
Deleteindicated matronly status.
In my grandparents' home movies, men wore suits, ties, hats even to picnics.
ReplyDeleteI've seen photos of people at the beach in the thirties in England, men with hats, lace up shoes!
DeleteI am of a generation when my mother wore her hat in church but hats, generally, had been discarded by then (except for weddings and going to the Ascot races it seems).
ReplyDeleteI suppose as society changed, it became impractical to wear a hat everywhere.
DeleteI remember wearing hats at school and how we hated them! They do dress up an outfit but I have never managed to wear them with panache. I envy those who can.
ReplyDeleteI agree, you need a certain type of face shape or something. We wore berets at school, but my older sister had to wear a velour hat with w brim and school badge. With her masses of curly hair, hopeless!
DeleteI have never been a hat person and only rarely can be convinced to even so much as wear one to keep my ears warm in the winter (despite always complaining bitterly about my ears freezing).
ReplyDeleteYes, I will wear a beret in bitter or windy weather, but I'd rather have a cowl up around my ears.
Delete