A history of Braided Straw

[daizawaguy]

The arrival of my latest VS had me searching the web for the history of braided straw as a material in the contruction of hats.

http://www.archive.org/stream/strawhatstheirhi00inwauoft/strawhatstheirhi00inwauoft_djvu.txt

I came across this fascinating article, which was written in the 1920`s and makes the following points:

* Hats of vegetable materials goes back possibly longer than animal materials

* The manipulation of vegatable fibers was possibly the earliest textile operation

* The emergence of Italian straw hats for both men and women in the 1500`s

*The English braiding industry around the 1800`s

* The emergence of the Chinese and Japanese straws

* The introduction of the machine in the 1870`s

* Methods of straw braiding

* The development of different types of patters, and hence terms - Bankoks. Manillas, paper panams etc

* "Probably the first machine-made braid (soon adopted
and classified as " straw ") was that known as " crino-
line." This has as its basis horsehair, and is made both
of hair alone and of hair mixed with many other fibres.
The plain braid can be composed of odd numbers of
strands of horsehair from five upwards, in series of
numbers divisible by four, plus one ; thus 17 ends, 21
ends, 25 ends, and so on ; the finest used in the trade
is 17 ends, which is about | of an inch in width, but
21 and 25 ends are the most in request for making the
Crinoline hat so well known in the most fashionable
quarters"

* Dyeing, bleaching and blocking techniques

 

[Blackthorn]

Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing.

 

[daizawaguy]

What I didnt realize was the skill and technique needed... read this part on "Stiffening"...

"THE general description of the actual sewing of a straw
hat, whether by hand or machine, must be followed by
the statement that when sewn the hat is invariably in
a limp condition, that is it is quite unfit for general wear.
There are some few plaits, when made into hats, so firm
in their consistency as to require little or even no assist-
ance to keep them in shape. These shapes are mainly
of the " floppy " order, and are designed either to wear
as " picture " hats or to be manipulated in such a
manner as to make a " toque " effect. From the earliest
period of making hats for fashionable wear, and that
certainly is not more than two centuries ago, some
process was necessary to keep the hat, whether woven
or sewn, in the required shape. The first methods
were by the insertion of a kind of wicker foundation,
which allowed the shape to be moulded to it ; and by
similar materials threaded through the rows of the plait,
or being attached thereto by sewing ; also by fine wires
which were utilized in the same way as the wicker.
Whalebone was also used as a support, and in the
construction of the huge hats common during the
Georgian period, cardboard and buckram were used. But
all these articles, effective though they might have been,
were of such great weight that means were sought to
find a medium that would give the desired result without
increasing the weight. One must remember that with
the use of whole straws a hat of large size would be very
heavy without the addition of wicker, wire, or buckram,
and when, during the craze for French fashions which
followed the signing of the Treaty of Amiens, smaller
hats came into vogue, such strengtheners made the hats
look clumsy and distorted. The genius, whether
Briton or foreigner, who discovered the use of glue or
gelatine for the stiffening of straw hats, is unknown,
although it is very probable he or she was French.
(When the writer was apprenticed to a firm of hat makers
in Paris in 1877, he was given to understand that the
first gelatine process for hats was used in Paris. If the
name of the inventor was given, he has entirely forgotten
it, but to the best of his recollection no name was
mentioned.) But other materials such as starch and
isinglass had been tried, but none found entirely satis-
factory until the use of glue was adopted. Gelatine
is a fine variety of glue, and was developed first by the
French glue makers ; among the foremost of whom
were Coignet Freres, of Lyons, founded in 1818. The
manufacture of gelatine is now almost universal, but
Messrs. Coignet still retain a very high credit for their
wares. It is quite probable that either some glue used
for joinery or gelatine bought for cookery purposes
was first tried on straw hats by the inventor, and
doubtless with such success that it was speedily taken
up by all straw workers, and to-day no other medium
is used for the stiffening of actual straws."