Cherished collectors’ items were ornamental, useful

Press, 9 February 1982, Page 12

Cherished collectors’ items were ornamental, useful

Some years ago. after attending a friend's wedding, my husband.remarked that it might be a good idea at the conclusion of such functions to hold a ceremony at which all the women guests presented their hats to the bride, as his observations had led him to believe that few of these hats would ever be worn again. I could only agree that it was unlikely that many of the hats w'ould ever be worn' again, and I enjoyed a mental picture of some future collector gathering up the spoils from all the weddings and establishing a giant museum with a chronological display of wedding guest hats through the ages. Today’s hatless vogue makes it highly unlikely that this will ever eventuate.

I do have one friend who collects hats, but her home consists of a number of detached buildings in rather spacious grounds on a Pacific island. The hats are quite ornamental hung about in various places and most use-

ful for guests who come unprepared for tropical sun. Amassing a comprehensive selection of hats would be fun and provide endless variety but for most of us space would be an insoluable problem. The large pins used at times to anchor the hats to the heads of their wearers are almost as interesting and certainly more easily housed. Hats have been around for as long as the climate has dictated a need for protection from heat or cold, also in many cultures as a badge of office indicating to all the elevated social status or official position of the wearer. Crowns have served the same purpose but are probably a development of even earlier head wreaths worn by those in authority in many places. The word "hat?' defined in a 1910 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica as "a covering for the head worn by both sexes and distinguished from cap or bonnet by possession of a brim," has changed little from its earlier forms hoet. halt, hotte, and hut but today also includes brimless types.

No doubt inclement weather has always made it necessary from time to time to fasten hats to their wearers but the extraordinarily elaborate hair-dos. fashionable towards the end of the nineteenth century.- made it quite impossible to do this by means of a fastening under the chin or other similar devices and resulted in the production of the many thousands of ornamental pins sought by collectors today.

The combined weight of the reinforced coiffures and their giant hats' must have been difficult to balance and the young ladies of the day could have needed no exhortation to hold their heads upright. Anything more than the slightest inclination of the head might have brought disaster.

The long pins themselves were usually plain and purely functional although a few had a spiral decoration which also probably provided a firmer grip on the hair. Length varied from quite short shafts of a few inches up to dangerous looking implements of 10 to 12 inches. Il was the ornamental heads which were of most importance. They came in such enormbus variety in the later type, used from the turn of the century until the beginning of the First World War. that no two seem exactly alike.

Earlier pins made in the 1880 s and 1890 s were often of sterling silver and many had intricately decorated heads of fine workmanship. These are keenly sought today and both here and in Britain are becoming quite expensive. A favourite design, probably originated by Scottish silversmiths, was a large thistle with amethyst or cairngorm flower. Sometimes a group of thistles was featured.

Among the more beautiful of the pins of -the early twentieth century are those with enamelled heads in the form of butterflies or flowers and sometimes of abstract

design. There were also a ndmber of novelty pins with heads representing everything from animals to musical instruments, aeroplanes and good-luck symbols. The latter were mass produced and are not of the same quality as the earlier crafts-man-made examples, but all are eagerly snapped up by today’s enthusiasts.

Individual initiative has added some pins of unusual interest. In collections viewed recently I have seen some which used old military badges from New Zealand's earliest days of European settlement and others with buttons both military and civilian, obviously of sentimental value to the original owner, as was the single example with entwined initials.

There is an excellent selection of over 40 hat-pins exhibited in the millinery case in the Costume Gallery at Canterbury Museum, including most'of the populardesigns and a number of rare examples. I noticed some particularly attractive enamelled butterflies, thistletype heads and one silver sword.

Hat-pins are also available in a number of antique shops. In one shop on Papanui Road. 1 found some of the lovely early silver pins and an attractive early twentieth century example. A few similar pins were available in other shops, in the city and at Riccarton but I have not yet come across any of the jewelled pins of the Art Nouvea,.’ period. Perhaps not

many of these found their way'to New Zealand. Few of us would wish to return to hat-pin days but they did have one great advantage — women always had available a convenient and potentially lethal weapon for self defence. This particular quality of the hatpin was not always appreciated and the careless use of the pins proved an annoyance to certain other citizens, in particular those employed as tram conductors. Graham Stewart in his book. “The End of the Penny Section." states that some conductors had scars as evidence that ladies should be compelled to use guards on their hat-pins. A submission was made to one local corporation to the effect that “the conductor has enough to put up with without being bayoneted in the discharge of his duty.”

Today most hat-pins are carefully cherished, mounted in small velvet cushions or. if. the collector is fortunate enough to have found one. in one of the specially manufactured porcelain holders used at the time of their popularity to hold the pins readily available on a dressing table. I saw two of these in Eureka Antiques. Manchester Street recently . One was made by the Doulton factory. The other bore no manufacturer’s name. They’ look rather like a flower vase but with a perforated porcelain top for holding the pins. No hat-pin collection should be without one of these.