While the Queen is in residence at Balmoral this month, we’re going to look at several Scottish hats.

History: Named for the eponymous hero of the 1790 Robert Burns poem, the tam o’shanter is a flat men’s hat, traditionally made of hand-knitted wool that is stretched on a wooden disk to give it a distinctive flat shape, then felted. From the late 1500s through the 1800s, these “Scottish bonnets” were widely worn; similar to other flat bonnets common in northwestern Europe during the 170s, the tam o’shanter was distinguished by the wool pompom (known as a toorie) placed at the center of the crown. Prior introduction of synthetic dyes in the mid-19th century, these bonnets were made in only in colours possible from natural dyes, especial woad and indigo, which provided the widely used nickname of “blue bonnet” for this style of hat.

In 1915, the tam o’shanter was adopted by Scottish infantry serving on the Western Front and given the military abbreviation “ToS.” Today, regiments in Scotland, Canada and Australia continue to wear the ToS as part of their military uniform.

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Based on the tam o’shanter, the tam emerged as popular women’s hat in the 1920 thanks to its compatibility with short hairstyles and the soft versatility of shape, which could be draped in different face-framing ways. A resurgence of tartan and checked patterns in the 1930s kept the style popular, albeit in a less voluminous silhouette. After this extended time en vogue, the hat style was solidified as one that would stay. It experienced another circle through popularity in the 1970s and early 1980s.

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Tams for women in the 1920s (left) and 1930s (right)

Characteristics: A soft, voluminous round hat, usually with a round seam that joins the flat crown to the sides (some tam crowns have triangular pie-shaped seams. Tams often have a band around the bottom that gathers in the voluminous crown and secures the hat to the head of its wearer. A traditional tam has a pompom placed on the center of the crown and is made of felted wool but today, they are made in any number of fabrics, usually without a pompom!

How a Tam and A Beret Differ: Look for crown volume and seams! If either are there, it’s likely a tam. A band around the bottom of the hat is another indication it is a tam. Tams are always made of fabric and are not blocked.

Royals Associated with this Hat Style: It’s no surprise that the royal family of the United Kingdom, which includes Scotland, are the bunch most seen in this hat style. A tam’s ease of wear makes it an accessible style for all ages.

Royal Tams:

 What do you think of this Scottish bonnet?!

Photos from Serge Lemoine, Terry Fincher/Princess Diana Archive, Mike McLaren/Central Press, UK Press, Anwar Hussein, Bert Van Den Broucke/Photonews, Tim Graham Photo Library, Bettmann, PA Images, Getty Images, Tim Graham Photo Library,  PA Images, Ray Bellisario/Popperfoto, Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive, Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty; Ron Bell/PA Archive/PA Images;  Max Mumby/Indigo,  Hulton Archive via Getty

Characteristics: A brimmed hat that when worn, the brim underside creates a circular halo shape around the face. The halo effect is created by placing the hat toward the back of the head and brim shape, which usually curves upward, off the face toward the hat’s crown (often to a greater extent in the front) without touching it. Halo hats cover a wide range of sizes and proportions, some with shorter brims that hug the head like a bonnet and others with wider brims that create a larger circle around the wearer’s head.

History:  This millinery style first appeared in popular fashion in the 1880s known as an aureole, which means ‘a circle of light or brightness surrounding something’. The style reappeared in the 1930s, its open, off-the-face shape a welcome departure from the over-the-brow cloche shape that dominated millinery fashion in the 1920s. Two famous royal faces helped the style gain popularity- the Duchess of York appeared in one at a charity event in 1933 and Wallis Simpson  famously wore a halo hat made by Parisienne milliner Caroline Reboux for her wedding to the Duke of Windsor in 1937.

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Halo hats experienced a decade-long revival in the mid 1960s and again in the late 1980, when oversized versions were trendy into the early 1990s. These days, it is a style we seldom see.

Royals Associated with this Hat Style:  During each period of popularity this style was widely worn by royal women at the time, as you’ll see below. Queen Elizabeth included numerous halo hats in her 1977 Silver Jubilee wardrobe and wore several larger scale designs during the early 1990s.  The Duchess of Cornwall’s wheat feather wedding headpiece in 2005 also followed a halo shape.

Royal Halo Hats:

   
Queen Elizabeth, April 1940; Princess Marina, July 1949; Princess Elizabeth, June 1951; Princess Sofia,1961

Princess Grace, 1966; Princess Margrethe, June 1968; Duchess of Kent, July 1969; Princess Margriet, August 1970

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Princess Margaret, June 1969; Queen Juliana, April 1971, Queen Elizabeth, March 1972, Princess Michiko, May 1973

 
Princess Anne, June 1972; Queen Elizabeth, June 1976; Queen Mother, June 1977; Queen Elizabeth February 1977

Duchess of York, Sep 1988; Princess of Wales, June 1990; HGD Maria Teresa, July 1993; Queen Elizabeth, March 1994

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Princess Marilene, August 2005; Princess Caroline, November 2011;
Princess Margriet, May 2014; Princess Michael of Kent, November 2015 

I arranged the hats above in roughly chronological order so we could see the slight tweaks in shape and proportion between each of this hat’s trends back into popularity. While halo shaped bandeau headpieces are very popular now, we don’t see many full-on brimmed halo hats- what do you think of this millinery shape?

Photos from Paul Popper/Popperfoto, Lisa Sheraton/Stringer, Keystone, Keystone, Mondadori, Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix, Jeff Goode/Toronto Star, George W. Hales/Fox Photos, Fairfax Media Archives, Lichfield Archive, Ray Bellisario/Popperfoto, Anwar Hussein,  Tim Graham Photo Library, Serge Lemoine, Tim Graham Photo Library, Leo Mason/Popperfoto, Reuter Raymond/Sygma, John Shelley Collection/Avalon,  Michel Porro, Stephane Cardinale – PLS Pool, and Michel Porro, via Getty

History: The Homburg hat was a formal men’s daytime hat that emerged in the Bad Homburg vor der Höhe region around Hesse Germany in the mid 1800s. The style flew to mainstream popularity in the 1880s after King Edward VII paid a visit to the area and brought back a hat. He was thrilled when it was replicated and his aids, wishing to further flatter his vanity, further encouraged milliners to copy the style.

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British Prime Minister Anthony Eden embraced this style and when, as a young politician, his dapper dress sense brought him to prominence, he started a resurgence of popularity for the homburg as well. This renaissance is oven attributed to Winston Churchill, who also wore this style but the hat was so connected to Anthony Eden that by the end of the 1930s, Savile Row referred to it as “The Eden”. Still popular in the early 1950s, US President Dwight Eisenhower broke with tradition at his 1953 inauguration, wearing a black homburg instead of a top hat.

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Like other daytime hats worn by men, the homburg fell into obscurity during the second half of the 20th century (except for a brief comeback in the early 1970s after Al Pacino wore one in the film The Godfather). Today, the style is seldom seen outside of Orthodox Jewish communities.

Characteristics: A formal felt hat with a “gutter crown” – a single dent running down the center of the crown – and a stiff bound edge brim shaped in a gently upturned “kettle curl”. Unlike a fedora, a homberg does not have any ‘pinches’ at the front of the crown- the crown sides are smooth with that signature dent and resulting humps on top.

Royals associated with this style of hat today:  Worn by many male royals in the early 20th century, these days we see an occasional variation of the masculine shape on royal ladies. Much less popular than a fedora (which seems like a more flattering shape for a women to wear), we seldom see a homburg on a contemporary royal head.

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Queen Elizabeth in Rachel Trevor Morgan November 21, 2013; Queen Margrethe on April 8, 1970;
Countess of Wessex in Philip Treacy April 20, 2003;

Queen Margrethe on May 9, 2007; Duke of York (later King George VI) in July 1923;
Queen Mathilde in Fabienne Delvigne March 14, 2018;

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Princess Anne in John Boyd May 1969 and March 14, 2014

It’s not often that a new style of hat becomes popular from its association with a particular royal wearing it- that makes the homburg notable for me. What do you think of this traditional and distinguished hat shape?

Photos from Getty as indicated; Mark Cuthbert, Holton Archive, Photonews and Terry Disney/Stringer via Getty