Cocked hats and the tricorn.
No self-respecting Highwaymen would go out on the road and attempt to relieve the aristocracy of their pocket money, without his tricorn. Mind you everyone wore them, including the military.
It came about as the brims of felt hats became fashionably large and at the same time unfeasibly floppy, so folk took to pinning them up at the sides and the back, creating a three cornered hat. Usually worn with a point pointing forwards. It is, in fact, the orientation of the point that defined headgear [and which side you were on in the war with France] for nearly a hundred years.
For after the tricorn came, not surprisingly, the bicorn, where the brim was even bigger and was pinned up front and back only, being worn with the points facing left and right. Your man Napoleon made this particular chapeau popular.
Not wanting to copy the French Emperor, with whom we were at war, the British turned their bicorns through ninety degrees et voila! le cocked hat was born.
It came about as the brims of felt hats became fashionably large and at the same time unfeasibly floppy, so folk took to pinning them up at the sides and the back, creating a three cornered hat. Usually worn with a point pointing forwards. It is, in fact, the orientation of the point that defined headgear [and which side you were on in the war with France] for nearly a hundred years.
For after the tricorn came, not surprisingly, the bicorn, where the brim was even bigger and was pinned up front and back only, being worn with the points facing left and right. Your man Napoleon made this particular chapeau popular.
Not wanting to copy the French Emperor, with whom we were at war, the British turned their bicorns through ninety degrees et voila! le cocked hat was born.
posted by John | 6:48 pm
1 Comments:
The tricorn looks rather good, in a full-of-itself kind of a way. The others just look silly and this is probably why we are no longer Top Nation, and neither is France.
Post a Comment
<< Home