How to Wear 1940s Hats

There’s a real soft-spot in my heart for 1940s fashions. Perhaps it’s because I grew up seeing the big shoulder pads and nipped in waists of the of the 80s and thinking it was all oh so glamorous, and later I realised how one decade was an echo of the other. Both embraced similar trends: knee-length skirts, padded shoulders, fur and hourglass figures. The main difference was that the 40s did it with a greater sense of style.

Perhaps because of the war, everyone really seemed to make the most of what they had. Nobody slobbed around in leggings and T-shirts (even if Lycra had been invented then). Everything, from Victory Rolls, to hand-painting seams on your legs with gravy-browning when you couldn’t get hold of stockings, the whole decade proudly declared that though times may be tough, ‘I’m going to look damn good anyway!’.

It’s hard to imagine any 1940s outfit to be complete without a hat, whether it isa small tilt hat, a fur hat, wide-brimmed picture hats, berets or imaginative evening hats. I’ve matched up some of my favourite vintage hats with these fabulous fashions. What do you think of my outfit-pairings?

Above: some fabulous 1940s fashions from McCalls Magazine September 1941. Isn’t the hat with horns fabulous??

This 1940s peek-a-boo straw tilt hat would look amazing with one of those green dresses below.

A vintage 1940s platter tilt hat like this which would look fabulous with some stylish evening wear. I’m thinking that black dress with the lace sleeves below. Don’t those pink gloves just make that outfit?

How about this wonderful 1940s monochrome tilt hat with the black dress with the white gloves above?

This pretty black and fur evening tilt hat would look wonderful with the elegant black coat below with maybe the gorgeous green dress (bottom) underneath!