Millinery
1920s Hat Making Techniques
by Jane Loewen

CONDITION: new, softcover, crisp and glossy covers, 2008, 213 pages, unabridged, size: 6x9, published by Bramcost Publications

Originally published in 1926, this rare millinery book contains 213 pages of hat making information and techniques. Jane Loewen was a millinery instructor at the University of Chicago and her book is laid out as a teaching guide complete with detailed instructions. She also designed hats and created patterns for the CA Loewen Co in Chicago which appeared in The Milliner Magazine in the 1920s.

Over 100 diagrams and photographs help explain the hat making process, with many of the images depicting the hat styles in vogue in the mid-1920s. With so many hat styles displayed from a 1920s hat designer and teacher, you will get a first hand idea of how to recreate these same designs for either vintage looks or modern day hat designs. Fifteen chapters detail the following (with chapters subdivided into hundreds of informative parts):

• Wire Frames (constructing a wire frame, dimensions for standard hats, mathematical side of framing, uses of wire frames)
• Molded Frames (molded or pressed frames, hand-molded frames, bias dry-molded frames)
• Pattern Frames (classification of frames made from patterns, comparison of processes in making unrolled and rolled frames, cutting the frame, wiring frame, binding a frame, covering frame with interlining)
• Crowns (frame foundations used for crowns, kinds of crowns, outline of kinds of crowns and their appropriate brims, how to determine kinds of crowns suitable to individual types of faces)
• Staple Millinery Materials
• Cutting Materials (cutting a true bias, cutting a long bias, table of bias measurements, measuring a frame for correct amount of material, accuracy in cutting, methods used for cutting maline, cutting bias binding from frame and crown edges, and more)
• Fabric Hat (fall materials and fabrics, classified construction of fabric hats for fall and winter)
• Braid Hats (kinds, manner of sewing)
• Transparent Hats (kinds, preparing the frame, edge finishes, appropriate trimmings)
• Draped Hats (matrons turbans, harem turbans, draped tams, section hats)
• Tailored Trimmings (factory-tailored hats, semi-tailored hats, kinds of tailored trimmings)
• Dress-Hat Trimmings (trimmings for which the hat is a background, trimming which is part of the design)
• Cleaning and Remodeling
• Color Harmony as Applied to the Individual (purpose of color in adorning the person, color versus temperment, chart of color combinations suitable to various types)
• Line Harmony (fundamental principles of line, principles of line as applied to the individual)

Filled with inspiration, ideas and professional instruction, this book will make a great addition to your millinery collection and provide you with endless design examples to spark your own creativity. The line drawings throughout will give you an accurate 1920s guide to trimming your hats, different hat styles and important techniques such as edge-wire finishing, cording a sectional crown, molding a braided crown, winding a wire frame with maline, draping a harem turban, pleating ribbon, finishing a feather stem with cord, using a tie-tack stitch for tacking flowers and feathers, and so much more.

Bramcost Publications is your publishing resource for vintage lifestyle books and patterns. Our books/patterns focus on the way our foremothers and forefathers lived, laughed and loved in their everyday lives. Beauty, fashion, millinery, entertaining and handicrafts are the building blocks of our book/pattern offerings with an emphasis on VINTAGE:

• makeup, hairstyling, beauty
• sewing, pattern drafting, fashion design
• knitting and crochet patterns
• millinery, hat construction, hat patterns
• beadwork, jewelry making
• ribbonwork, embroidery, embellishments, quilting
• weddings, bridal interest
• paper dolls, doll books, doll clothes patterns
• Christmas, Easter, Halloween and Valentine?s Day holiday celebrations