In yesterday's post we looked at colourful blooms in art, but we can keep on dreaming about Spring trends in Winter by stepping back in the past.
In December 1960, Italian magazine Annabella did a feature about popular millinery trends for January 1961: the most flamoboyant option was a Dior unisex hat made of tiny feathers (a traditional Haute Couture technique often seen on Dior and Chanel's runways, but also favoured by younger designers such as Christelle Kocher in the collections for her brand, Koché).
The picture is in black and white, but the hats were available in different shades, including a more natural grey or a flamboyant red. The magazine suggested readers to match the accessory with a sporty or a casual look to create a contrast with this high fashion technique. Choosing the proper dress or coat to go with this hat may have been a dilemma for fashionistas, but fashion historians may be in a different quandary when it comes to these hats.
Yves Saint Laurent had replaced Dior after he died in 1957, but, in the late 1960, Laurent was replaced by Marc Bohan. So the real dilemma posed by the hats is were they designed by Saint Laurent before he left (after all, the modern and dynamic shape and the fact that they were unisex would point at him) or were they among the first accessories Bohan did as soon as arriving at Dior's house?
