Long, short, broad, narrow, curled this way or that,
'Tis still a hat!
The centenary of the tall-hat (according to the Daily News) arrived in 1890, and Punch heaped scorn on this unlovely centenarian:—
Mad was the hatter who invented
The demon "topper," and demented
The race that, spite of pain and jeers,
Has borne it—for One Hundred Years!
For holiday or sporting wear Tyrolese hats came into vogue in the late 'eighties, and the picture of two "chappies" at Monte Carlo in what is presumably the height of the fashion presents them in check tweeds, spats and Austrian jäger hats. The Homburg hat belongs to a slightly later period.
Mr. A. C. Corbould, in an illustration of the correct costume for Rotten Row in 1885 and 1889, shows that for men the tall hat and frock coat had yielded in the latter year to the bowler and tweeds. The dress of the ladies shows less change, but the tall hat has gone and the skirts are grey not black. Short tailless coats for morning wear were coming in, and Punch welcomes in 1889 the introduction of brown boots as a relief from "that dual despotism, dreadful grown, of needless nigritude and futile polish." Whiskers were still worn, but, amongst young men, were severely restricted in length, and shorn of the ambrosial exuberance of the 'fifties and 'sixties.
"Æsthetes" were once described as a set of long-haired men and short-haired women, and Du Maurier's pictures justify the summary, but these peculiarities were confined to a coterie; they never seriously affected the usages of Mayfair or involved any revision of the "petty decalogue of Mode." Spats were generally worn, and the "mashers" of the 'eighties carried very slim umbrellas when they took their walks abroad in the park for Sunday parade. Evening dress presents few and negligible differences from that in vogue to-day. One of the very few references to military uniforms in these years indicates the reaction against "useless flummery." A military correspondent in The Times had said, in 1890, that the day of cocked hats and plumes was gone, and Punch availed himself of the saying to design a new and rational uniform for general officers, so that they might be mistaken by the enemy for harmless gentlemen farmers.