Astraw hat is a wide-brimmedhat that iswoven out ofstraw or straw-likesynthetic materials.[1] Straw hats are a type ofsun hat designed to shade the head and face from direct sunlight, but are also used infashion as a decorative element or auniform.
Visca straw: an artificial straw made by spinning viscose in a flat filament capable of being braided, woven, or knitted and used especially for women's hats,
There are several styles of straw hats, but all of them are woven using some form ofplant fibre.[15][16] Many of these hats are formed in a similar way tofelt hats; they are softened bysteam or by submersion in hot water, and then formed by hand or over ahat block. Finer and more expensive straw hats have a tighter and more consistent weave. Since it takes much more time to weave a larger hat than a smaller one, larger hats are more expensive.[citation needed]
Straw hats have been worn in Africa and Asia since after theMiddle Ages during the summer months, and have changed little between the medieval times and today. They are worn, mostly by men, by all classes. Many can be seen in the calendar miniatures of theTrès Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.
Themokorotlo, a local design of a straw hat, is the national symbol of the Basotho and Lesotho peoples, and of the nation ofLesotho. It is displayed on Lesotholicense plates.
Betsey Metcalf Baker (née Betsey Metcalf; 1786–1867)[17] was a manufacturer of strawbonnets, entrepreneur, and social activist based in Providence, Rhode Island and Westwood, Massachusetts. At age twelve, she developed a technique for braiding straw, allowing her to emulate the styles of expensive straw bonnets and make them accessible to working-class women. Rather than patent her technique, Baker taught the women in her community how to make straw bonnets, enabling the development of a cottage industry in New England.[18]
Because of theNapoleonic Wars, the United Statesembargoed all trade with France and Great Britain for a time, creating a need for American-made hats to replace Europeanmillinery. The straw-weaving industry filled the gap, with over $500,000 ($9 million in today's money) worth of straw bonnets produced in Massachusetts alone in 1810.[19]
On May 5, 1809,Mary Dixon Kies received a patent for a new technique of weaving straw withsilk andthread to make hats.[20][21] Some sources say she was the first woman to receive a US Patent,[22][23] however other sources citeHannah Slater in 1793,[24][25][26] or Hazel Irwin, who received a patent for acheese press in 1808,[27][24] as the first.
President Theodore Roosevelt posed for a series of photos at thePanama Canal construction site in 1906. He was portrayed as a strong, rugged leader dressed crisply in light-colored suits and stylish straw fedoras. This helped popularize the straw "Panama hat".[28]
The Old Order Amish, in the United States, still wear straw hats (similar to a Boater Hat), especially in the summer months. In the winter, or for formal wear, they will wear a felt hat.
Panama hat – a fine and expensive hat made in Ecuador.
Sombrero vueltiao - A straw hat with intricate patterns made from caña flecha by the Zenú people of Colombia.
Salakot – a traditional conical or pointed rounded hat made usually made fromrattan from the Philippines. It can also be made fromgourds,tortoiseshell, or other fibers and weaving materials.
Strawbonnet - Bonnet has been used as the name for a wide variety of headgear for both sexes—more often female—from the Middle Ages to the present. Some are made of straw.
Artwork produced during the Middle Ages shows, among the more fashionably dressed, possibly the most spectacular straw hats ever seen on men in the West, notably those worn in theArnolfini Portrait of 1434 byJan van Eyck (tall, stained black) and bySaint George in a painting byPisanello of around the same date (left). In the middle of the 18th century, it was fashionable for rich ladies to dress as country girls with a low crowned and wide brimmed straw hat to complete the look.[29]
^Historical Common Names of Great Plains Plants Volume I: Historical Names , Elaine Nowick, Lulu.com, 01.10.2014, P. 355[self-published source]
^Information for use in determining whether to continue designation of certain headwear of straw as articles eligible for duty-free treatment under the generalized system of preferences:, Jackie Worrell, United States International Trade Commission, 1982, P. 5
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