At the start is contains a glossary of millinery terms, this contains the a description of different styles of hats as well as trims. This book is aimed at the collector of vintage hats and as such contains a price guide for the hats listed. The photos are all clear and in full colour and they contain a description of what the hat is made out of and of the trimming.

The book is broken up into chapters based on the era for example chapter one is 1790 to 1837 and chapter 2 is 1837-1901. The book goes right up to the modern day. With each section containing a description of the hats and inspirations of that era. Chapter 12 contains special collections such as Ascot hats, Christmas hats, daisies, feathered hats, red hats, wedding hats and more.

An example of the description given with each hat is…. ‘A brilllliant wool felt in antique red is folded on the right side to create a wing effect and finished with an art deco pin; a stylish interpretation of the aviator’s helmet. label: Jeanne et Jacques.’ this is for a hat in 1920′s to 30′s era.

With 253 pages of hats in full colour (1000 photos), this is one stunning book and one I am sure to draw inspiration from for many years.

Image via Wikipedia

I have been researching better ways to put together tutorials on making hats… The ones that I like the best are on the Instructables website… Here are two I found on hats.

A girl pirate hat – I think this is quite a good design and the way the instructions are set out it would make it easy to make Girl Pirate Hat .

A brimmed beanie – this is a simple hat that could be worn by males or females. How To Make a Brimmed Beenie.

I will have to work a bit to make my instructions as easy to read as these. I have just found my camera cord (which had been packed away in some obscure box) so will download the photos for the rest of my cocktail base hat in the next few days.