STRAW HATS
CHAPTER I
ORIGIN AND CLASSICAL HISTORY
The origin of what is known as a “Straw Hat” is lost in the mists of antiquity.
Ambiguous references to what may have been hats of vegetable materials are to be found in the works of almost all ancient writers, but very little that is specific can be discovered. Perhaps one reason for the paucity of information on this subject may be that the home made hats of plaitted straws or rushes were probably worn only by the common people. With society, as it existed in early days, if such were the case, the matter would be considered almost too vulgar for the classical writers to mention.
Doubtless in the earliest stages of human development any kind of convenient material was utilized by primeval man in the endeavour to keep his head or body warm or cool as the case might require.
Now the mere fact of the shelter afforded by trees would create some inducement towards using leaves for covering the body, for one may assume that even before vegetable products were gathered and used, say, as thatch, for collective shelter, some of them were adopted for individual protective purposes.
The earliest reference to such is the well-known account of the “aprons of fig leaves” mentioned in the third chapter of Genesis. This primitive method of clothing was soon followed by the use of skins (as noted later in the same chapter), but even in this record the vegetable product was used by man before that of animals, and shows in a most unmistakable, even if allegorical, manner, the natural trend of all development, viz., that articles easiest to procure are those that are first used.
Fig. 1
PETASUS, FROM PARTHENON FRIEZE (ELGIN MARBLE) BY PHIDIAS (circ. 450 B.C.)
Shaded part is now broken.