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Written by Janine Crocker of Miss Amelia's Miniatures...
Hats & gloves…’
With the dawn of the Victorian era the amount of leisure time available to the ladies of the middle classes was increasing. The idea of having a garden solely for the purpose of cultivating flowers had been almost unheard of and although many people would continue to have a kitchen garden for vegetables more and more ladies were discovering the pleasures of gardening as a hobby
"wear a broad-brimmed light silk or straw hat, to serve both as a shelter from moisture and a shade from the sun..."
Of course in many households this would continue to be gardening at its most ‘gentle’ and there would have been at least one full time gardener or at least a boy employed to carry out any heavy duties. On the larger estates the lady of the house would have only been permitted to collect a few roses for her drawing room or perhaps choose a new orchid for the greenhouse. I suspect though that in many middle class homes the ‘gentle’ side of life was for display and that these ladies were used to getting their hands dirty and getting on with the tougher chores before changing their dresses and assuming an air of fragility for tea in the parlour. In these cases the cottage garden would have perhaps evolved from the original kitchen garden.
In 1832 Louisa Johnson wrote ‘Every Lady Her Own Flower Garden’ followed by ‘Gardening for Ladies’ by Jane Loudon in 1840. ‘The Dictionary of Daily Wants’ published in 1958 gave gardening advice which seems in part to have been directed towards the ‘fairer sex’, “…Finally, attend to personal habits and to cleanliness. Never perform any operation without gloves on your hands that you can do with gloves on; even weeding is far more effectively and expeditiously performed by gloves the forefingers and thumbs of which terminate in wedge-like thimbles of steel, kept sharp. Most other operations may be performed with common gloves. Always use an iron head fastened to your shoe in digging; and generally wear a broad-brimmed light silk or straw hat, to serve both as a shelter from moisture and a shade from the sun. The labour of the feet will thus be lessened, the wear of the shoes spared, and rheumatism in the back and the neck avoided…”
"The gloves are fingerless to allow dexterity but are no less ornamental..."
By the 1850’s gardening advice and columns were starting to appear in ladies’ magazines such as The Ladies Companion, and Sam Beeton’s ‘Englishwoman’s Domestic magazine’ although they were few and far between and had a tendency to be removed in favour of the fashion pages. And of course fashion was so very important in this era with new styles and fabrics being introduced each year and a desire of the lower classes to be able to follow in the fashions of aristocracy
It was while browsing through an edition of ‘Harper’s Bazaar’ from 1872 that I came across these wonderful gardening hats and hoods. A pale complexion was so very important to ladies of this era as it told the world that they were ladies of substance and so veiled hats, gloves and parasols were of the utmost importance and no less so in the garden. A functional hat did not have to be plain however and in true Victorian spirit these beautiful items are trimmed with guipure lace and silk ribbon. The gloves are fingerless to allow dexterity but are no less ornamental.
One of the challenges of recreating millinery in 12th scale is the discovery of unusual designs and I have taken great pleasure in reproducing these in miniature. As always where there is a functional item there are several purely decorative items right behind it and I have included some of the later ‘garden hats’ that would have probably been worn more by the lady of the manor snipping a couple of roses than by the Victorian cottage gardener.
I am indebted to Barbara Onslow's article " Garden Columns in Women's Magazines" on her site Victorian Page http://www.victorianpage.com/Victorianpage-Ladiesfeature.html a wealth of information for lovers of the Victorian era.
Handturned acrylic hatstands by Thomas Saunders for Miss Amelia
For further information regarding any of the millinery featured in this article please contact janine@missameliasminiatures.com
