HAT BLOCKS

My great-grandmother was a hat milliner in France in the 1800s. My mother had great respect for this family history and began collecting hat blocks that decorated her home, and I inherited her collection. The beautiful shape of these hat blocks has always interested me as a sculptural form. As I capture their unique shape, texture, and character in these photographs, I am curious about their history, the hands that carved them, and the milliner who used them to create various chapeaus. Hat block making and the milliner craft in the 1800s were considered very highly skilled trades, and milliners diligently kept their designs a secret from competitors. As in the 1800s, hats today often indicated social status or denoted one’s job as part of a uniform, worn for warmth, everyday wear, or special occasions.