Lookbook: Deranged Easter bonnets of the Gilded Age
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Inter-Mountain Republican, April 26, 1908. Image via Utah Digital Newspapers/University of Utah
This weekend is Easter Sunday, so let's all take a moment to appreciate what we don't have to wear.
- It's time for Old News, our weekly strut down a runway of memories.
Context: In the late 1800s and early 1900s Easter was a spring fashion show, when people who usually rode in coaches walked to church to display their Sunday best.
- Annual "Easter parades" filled the streets from small towns to major cities.
Zoom in: Women's hats were a big part of the show, inspiring fiction, poetry, satire, crime — and lots of advice.
The intrigue: Utahns joined in the sartorial splendor, even though Mormonism largely eschewed big celebrations of religious holidays.
- "Holy week was without any large or important event, society devoting most of its time to church-going and millinery openings," the Salt Lake Tribune reported in 1901.
Here is some of the best hattery madness in the high desert, via Utah Digital Newspapers, hosted by the University of Utah.
