(Fig. 1) Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901), The Milliner, Renée Vert, 1893, Lithograph in two colors, Image: 18 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches (47.63 x 29.85 cm), Sheet: 21 1/2 x 13 3/4 inches (54.61 x 34.93 cm), Gift of Mrs. Leonard Charles Kline, F86-33
“[The hat] is the dress’s crowning glory, the final touch.”
Arsène Alexandre, art critic and fashion writer, 1902
Imagine a time and a place where you weren’t properly dressed unless you were wearing a hat. In late 1800s Paris, hats were an essential item of clothing, and milliners, or hatmakers and sellers, became a crucial professional class, immortalized by painters such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901), Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917), and Mary Cassatt (American, (1844–1926). Shops that sold millinery were places of commerce and social contact. Women and men of wealth from both sides bought hats in all shapes and sizes, promoting a new luxury industry.
Milliners employed tens of thousands of women. They ranged from shop owners and errand-girls, to trimmers, hat form makers, and hatform makers. Milliners, particularly the premières, or shop owners, were the highest paid workers in the Parisian garment district. Renée Vert, a well-known Parisian shopkeeper, was one such example. She opened her shop at 56 Rue du Faubourg in Saint-Honoré in the affluent 8th arrondissement. Toulouse-Lautrec’s 1893 print shows Madame Vert examining a luxurious creation, deemed by some to be a sculptural masterpiece, and priced from a few hundred francs to several hundreds. (Fig. 1)
Degas considered milliners to be the highest level of Parisian women workers. They were elegant and distinguished at all levels. The Nelson-Atkins boasts an exquisite pastel of junior milliners, or petites modistes, in one of the artist’s originally designed frames. (Fig. As young as 13, apprentices could enter the millinery industry and not reach the position of lead trimmer before they are 22. The junior milliners were in the middle of those stages.
Mary Cassatt adored hats. She often portrayed stylish women, children and even men wearing the latest fashions. In a pastel of a young girl, likely a model from the village near the artist’s home in Oise, outside of Paris, her oversized hat takes center stage. (Fig. 3) The subject’s soft velvet blue dress contrasts with her sharply creased and starched bonnet with sketchy strokes on its crown to indicate the presence of a feather.
Materials used to decorate hats are often luxurious and exotic. This included satin and velvet ribbons as well as silk flowers and feathers. Some even had whole stuffed birds such a Baltimore orioles or blue jays. Hats with feathers and other materials were popularized, which decimated some bird populations. Outrage was sparked by this and protective measures were taken to stop the slaughter of birds. Ostrich feathers were among the most exclusive items in the millinery hatbox, and a dyed green profusion of them can be found atop a bright green hat worn by a young woman in a colored lithograph by French artist Henri-Jacques-Édouard Evenepoel. (Fig. 4) A single, high-quality ostrich feather could sell for up to twenty-three francs, the equivalent of one week’s wages for a manual worker in Paris.
Men’s hats were made from more practical materials. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s watercolor drawing over black chalk captures the silky gleam of this chapeau haute-de-forme or top hat. (Fig. Top hats made from beaver were worn by men of leisure and aristocrats day or night. Due to the relative ease of manufacturing, silk has replaced beaver. Unlike women’s hats, which were an art form created by female modistes, men’s hats were made by male chapeliers in a more standardized way.
The millinery industry was a vital profession in late 1800s Paris. Hats were a staple item of clothing. Through the art of painters such as Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, and Cassatt, we see the influence and importance of hats and the millinery industry in the development of the city’s culture and society, becoming “the dress’s crowning glory, [and] the final touch.”
Organized by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Crowning Glory: Millinery in Paris, 1880–1905, is free, and on view through Dec. 3, 2023, in the Bloch Impressionist galleries.
–Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Louis L. and Adelaide C. Ward Senior Curator, European Arts