Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 191, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1911 — Children’s Hats [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Children’s Hats

NOTHING was ever quite so altogether “fit” and good for daily wear as the pretty little ruffled and starched sun-bonnets which the grandmothers of today wore in their childhood. Made of -washable ginghams and chambrays, more or less ruffled and embroidered, they constituted a part of every girl’s wardrobe. An assortment of tw3 or three did service for a summer, were consigned to the tub when soiled and emerging from their laundering fresh, delightful and as good as new. But for koine reason, or lack of reason, people of the towns and cities gradually discarded the sunbonnet and substituted for it straw hats, more or less practical. Recently favor has started back to the washable article and as a compromise the washable hat has been steadily growing in popularity. In the meantime childrens’ hats for dally wear are made of a number of durable straws In the lovely natural straw colors, in white and in all colors. The best-liked, with very good reasons, are the' rough glace straws in natural color. These stand a vast amount of wear and a certain amount of rough handling. There are Milans for those who are willing to pay the price, the coarse

“mountain leghorns” for those that are looking for cheaper hats and great numbers of canvas weaves, pretty and inexpensive, that will last out the season with some care. The rough straws are trimmed with ribbon or silk arranged in .the simplest of drapes and rosettes. Milans are finished with velvet ribbon as a rule and the canvas hats or those of smoothly woven straw are finished with a plajp fold of silk or band of narrow ribbon about the crown and a rosette of fancy silk or straw braid at the side. A pretty quill or two is often added. In all of these hats the crowns are large enough to fit quite comfortable on the head.. Brims nearly all droop, even though there be an upward roll toward the brim-edge. They are kept on the head by an elastic band which passes under the hair. Flowers or any fragile trimmings are out of place on sucb hats. Only the simplest and most durable of decorations are to be considered. Excellent examples of such millinery art pictured here, but (with apologies to milliners and to manufacturers), they do not equal the dear, old-fashioned sun-bonnet in adaptation to their use nor even in charm. Nevertheless they are attractive and good.

BY JULIA BOTTOMLEY.