Where Did the Custom of Wearing Sunbonnets Come from?
Posted By admin on February 29, 2012
I have always wondered where the custom of hat wearing had come from. I know that for myself, I’ve never liked wearing hats, not even as a child. My folks would be hard pressed to even get me into a pair of ear muffs J However, hat wearing was common centuries ago, and even today, with people like Lady Gaga and Madonna, hat wearing has been taken to new heights and new levels. It says different things about our society as a whole. And when a man or a woman chooses a hat for themselves, it makes a statement about themselves. It says something about their style and their taste.
Even in the 20th century, elegant hats, graceful hats, tiny hats….were still being worn into the 1950’s and 1960’s. In fact, I even remember my mother wearing a tiny hat to church with delicate feathers and lace netting that barely covered her eyes . It perched saucily on top of her brunette curls at a clever angle making my mother look both elegant and regal as we marched behind her like ducklings in a row. And heaven forbid her daughters were naked of hats before church! Out came the inevitable hankie and bobby pin to fasten a scrap of lace
to our hair before entering.
Take the hats that westerners wear. Today, it still is a masculine symbol to wear a cowboy hat in places like Wyoming, Colorado, and Montana. And how many men have you seen that wear baseball caps? And how many of them do you know that collect them!
Hats were designed to origjnally protect us from the elements and shield us from falling debris. Women wore them to protect their faces and complexions. Man began wearing them, over time, as a status symbol.
Today, people order a lot of our western sunbonnets to shield their faces from the sun and wind while doing gardening work. Why not visit our bonnet page to see our selection, one of the largest western sunbonnet choices on the internet. We guarantee you’ll be happy with the choices 
M. Jacobs specializes in western women’s bonnets and aprons for reenactors at www.rawhidestudios.com/bonnets Due to spam, this blog accepts only approved comments c/o our email address at www.rawhidestudios.com
ay, I do have some really lovely new pieces of delft ceramics available now like the canisters and a lovely wall mounted coffee grinder.
These canisters are about 4 3/4″ tall and across the top have the english and dutch version of the contents (Coffee, Tea or Sugar) and each container shows floral and the traditional Dutch mills.