Lesson 3
SELECTING A HAT
What can you learn about the care and arrangement of your hair. Do you know how to choose a hat?
Jane Smith says that some day she expects to be a milliner. Perhaps she will be. Miss James says she can later go to a school and study millinery. This means that Jane will learn not only how to make hats, but about the right lines and colors to use. Jane has a natural deftness of touch and a good idea about copying and designing; so Miss James thinks she will make a good milliner. So often hats are unbecoming because the colors are inharmonious, or the lines out of relation to the face wearing them. Whether one is old or young, one should think about this.
Give some care and thought to your hair. One day when Miss Travers came from the State College to speak to the Mothers' Clubs, she stopped at the school and gave a talk to the girls of Pleasant Valley School about their hair and hats. She said that so many women and girls forget to take care of their hair. It should be washed once a month in hot water with castile soap and perhaps with the white of an egg, and then thoroughly rinsed. The comb and brush should be washed once a week. Marjorie Allen's mother has beautiful hair, and she says she does as Miss Travers told the girls; and also she brushes her hair carefully to remove dust, every night before going to bed, and braids her hair in two braids for the night. This is a very good way to care for one's hair.
Have you ever noticed how some girls nearly lose all their hair because they burn it or dry it up with the curling irons? One should be very careful always to test the irons on a paper. Burned hair is not beautiful. So often girls forget that the becomingness of a hat will depend on the way the hair is taken care of or dressed.
Fig. 137.—Which arrangement of hair and bow do you think most appropriate for school wear?
Large bows, out of proportion to the size of the head, are very poor taste. A bow as well as a hat should suit the face in line as well as color, and a bow which stands way out in conspicuous angles is not good in line, as it is not apt to conform to the lines of the face and of the head wearing it. Have you noticed this? Perhaps you can try to rearrange some of the bows the girls are wearing to school so they will be in better taste. Cleanliness of the head and hair, and a clean, clear complexion, which comes from proper food and good digestion as well as from cleanliness, are the best backgrounds for a hat. Any girl who has this charm of cleanliness can with thought choose a hat which will be becoming. Hats, also, emphasize the defects as well as the good points of the wearer; so neatness and a becoming way of arranging the hair will help very much. Perhaps some of the girls would like to learn to make hats, too. The hat is the most difficult article of the whole wardrobe to select. Most girls and women wear hats that are too small and that stand on the top of the head instead of fitting it. Good taste, Miss James says, in choosing hats means the very thing we have studied about: artistic appreciation, a knowledge of line and color and form as well as appropriateness.
Think about the shape and the lines of a hat. Hats should be chosen or planned, if one is making them, in relation to the whole figure. Do you stand up or sit down before the mirror in selecting a hat? Try standing up so you can see your whole figure and the relation of the hat to the whole. You can tell then if the hat is too large or too small, whether it overbalances the figure, or if the silhouette will be pleasing. Marjorie Allen says since she has learned about these things she is surprised to notice how few people have thought of this question of the silhouette. Sometimes, the milliners are to blame too, for they do not always know this secret. Marjorie says her new winter hat does not please her because of the silhouette.