Dinner toque
Made in Brooklyn in the heyday of its downtown shopping area, this hat exemplifies the quality and sophistication of goods available in Brooklyn's better stores at that time. The elaborate and complicated construction employs a complex combination of materials in contrasting textures and harmonizing tones. The hat is given presence by the stiff horsehair used for the body and principal decoration, but the overall effect is softened by the velvet trim, delicate tulle interspersed between the flowers, and specially dyed bird-of-paradise plumes positioned to fall along one edge.
Artwork Details
- Title: Dinner toque
- Department Store: Balch, Price & Company (American, founded 1869)
- Date: 1909
- Culture: American
- Medium: horsehair, feathers, silk, straw
- Credit Line: Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. M. Firth, 1961
- Object Number: 2009.300.1532
- Curatorial Department: The Costume Institute
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