Regency Bonnets and Caps

January 17 is Wear a Hat Day. Hats are not much in vogue in our modern times, but in Regency England, a stylish bonnet was an essential part of any lady's ensemble when she stepped out of doors. Married women and ladies of a certain age (late twenties and older) wore caps indoors. Shopping for hats and caps and keeping up with trims and colors was de rigeur for ladies.

In Northanger Abbey, Isabella Thorpe told Catherine Morland, "I saw the prettiest hat you can imagine in a shop window in Milsom-Street just now—very like yours, only with coquelicot ribbons instead of green; I quite longed for it."

Perhaps Miss Thorpe passed a shop that looked like the one represented in The Milliner's Shop by Alonzo Perez:

Alonzo Perez

In the first ten years of the 19th Century, the poke-bonnet gained popularity. In an 1801 letter, Jane Austen wrote that she had a new bonnet, trimmed with white ribbon:

"I find my straw bonnet looking very much like

other people's, and quite as smart."

Alfred Glendening



Artist Unknown







Leghorn hats were popular, featuring a large brim in front, and turned up behind in a soft roll in the French style, such as this bonnet:

Annie Henniker

Here are different Regency-era bonnets, as depicted by various artists:



Carl Thomsen

A. R. Kemplen

F. Sydney Muschamp

Carlton Alfred Smith

Charles Haigh-Wood

George Goodwin Kilburne

George Engleheart

Frederick Kaemmerer

Frederic Soulacroix

Daniel Hernandez Morillo

 
 In Emma, Mrs. Elton accepts Mr. Knightley's invitation to be part of the party that will pick strawberries at Donwell:

"It is to be a morning scheme, you know, Knightley; quite

a simple thing. I shall wear a large bonnet, and bring

one of my little baskets hanging on my arm. Here, —probably

this basket with pink ribbon. Nothing can be more simple, you see."



Edmund Blair Leighton

In her letters, Jane Austen wrote about re-trimming a cap:

I shall venture to retain the narrow silver

round it, put twice round without any bow,

and instead of the black military feather shall

put in the coquelicot one, as being smarter.

 This cap is trimmed with lace and black ribbon:

Edmund Blair Leighton

By 1810 the plain cottage bonnet became more elaborate. Hats became higher and were decorated with more than fabric and ribbon. Hats sported flowers, puffed gauze, feathers, and gathered or plaited fabric.

This hat bears the fashionable poppy-red color Isabella Thorpe called "coquelicot" in Northanger Abbey:

Edmund Blair Leighton

Daniel Hernandez Morillo

 In Mansfield Park, Miss Crawford explains to Edmund how easy it is to tell whether a woman is out in society based on her manners and her attire:

"Till now, I could not have supposed it possible to be

mistaken as to a girl's being out or not. A girl not out has

always the same sort of dress: a close bonnet, for instance."

Frederick Kaemmerer

George Sheridan Knowles