Post-War Transitional in White

I’ve been having so much fun sharing the millinery pieces from this spring with you, I decided to share this little bonnet. This really has been a forgotten about bonnet. It made it as far as some so-so photos for Etsy, then got tucked away to the back of the display table.

In the middle of the 1860s we see a transition from the fashionable spoon and cottage bonnet shapes to the hat and smaller bonnet shapes. There were a speckling of styles that show the transition from one millinery era to the next. My bonnet pulls mostly from this first example. The crown drastically shrinks, flattening out, while the cheektabs try various positions framing the sides of the face rather than coming down to the jaw line.

As you can see, the decorations and ribbon tend to encircle the crown and fall down along the remains of the cheektab.

I used the last of my hemp plait for this bonnet over the winter. The box pleating encircling the crown is a silk ribbon slightly narrower than the silk ribbon used for the ties. Just under the brim is a frill of fine net.