Hat

Charles James began his fashion career as a milliner, opening his first shop in Chicago in 1926. The medium allowed James to experiment with the sculptural potential of fabric, an approach that would reach its apex once he turned his attention to dressmaking and tailoring. The design above left has a shallow crown that bears a similar shape to bonnets worn in the 1880s and 1890s. Although the nineteenth-century bonnets sat perched at the back of the head and culminated in slim ribbons that tied under the chin, James transformed these ties into broad, notched streamers that gracefully frame the face.