1. The milliner is one who manufactures and repairs bonnets and hats
for ladies and children. Her business requires the use of pasteboard,
wire, buckram, silks, satins, muslins, ribands, artificial flowers,
spangles, and other materials too numerous to be mentioned.
2. The first part of the process of making a hat, or bonnet, consists
in forming a crown of buckram; which operation is performed on a block
of suitable size and shape; and to this is applied pasteboard, or
buckram, edged with wire, to form the front part. The foundation
having been thus laid, it is usually covered and lined with some of
the materials just enumerated, and finished by applying to it the
trimmings required by the fashion, or by the individual customer.
3. Ladies' hats are also made of rye straw, and a kind of grass, which
grows in Italy; those made of the latter material are called
_Leghorns_, from the name of the city, in or near which they are
principally made. A few years since, these had almost superseded those
made of straw; but the latter, of late, have nearly regained their
former ascendency.
4. In the United States, and likewise in various parts of Europe,
there are several establishments for making straw hats, in which the
proprietors employ females to perform the whole labor. The straw is
first cut into several pieces, so as to leave out the joints, and then
whitened by smoking them with the fumes of brimstone. They are next
split longitudinally into several pieces by a simple machine, and
afterwards plaited with the fingers and thumbs. The braid, or plait,
thus produced, is sewn together to form hats adapted to the prevailing
fashion.
5. Great quantities of straw are, also, plaited in families,
especially in the New-England states, and sold to neighboring
merchants, who, in turn, dispose of it to those who form it into hats.
The milliners usually keep a supply of Leghorn and straw hats, which
they line and trim according to the fancy of their customers.
6. Head-dresses were probably used nearly as early as any other part
of dress; and their form and material have likewise been equally
variable. In the early days of Rome, the head-dress of the women of
that city was very simple; and, when they went abroad, which was
seldom, they covered their faces with a veil; but, when riches and
luxury had increased, dress became, with many, the principal object of
attention; hence, a woman's toilet and ornaments were called her
_world_.
7. The head-dresses of the ladies, in various parts of Europe,
especially in the eighteenth century, were particularly extravagant,
being sometimes so high, that the face seemed to be nearly in the
centre of the body. In 1714, this fashion was at its height in France;
but two English ladies visiting the court of Versailles, introduced
the low head-dresses of their own country.
8. The high head-dresses had no sooner fallen into disuse in France,
than they were adopted in England, and even carried to a greater
degree of extravagance. To build one of these elevated structures in
the fashionable style, both the barber and milliner were necessary.
The head-dresses of the ladies of the present age, are characterized
by great simplicity, when compared with those of several periods in
preceding ages.