Estella and her Hats

As a young woman, Stella loved to wear hats: plain hats, fancy hats, hats with bows, ribbons, feathers, veils, big brims, little brims, no brims.  She loved them all.  Here is Stella with some of her hats.  Upper left: Stella is on the left.  Large bows must have been in vogue about 1920.  Upper Center: Here she wears a wide-brimmed brocade hat as she sits on the steps with her niece, Eunice Verhagen (her sister Alma’s daughter), about 1922.  Upper Right: Look at those outrageous feathers (or whatever)! Wow!  (mid 1920s).  Lower Left: She’s getting more conservative with a small feather (late 1920s).  Lower Center: This style was very popular in the late twenties.  Lower Right: Left to right, Stella’s mother, Emma Aldrich (with Stella’s niece, Carol Verhagen); Stella’s sister, Cecil; Estella with a simple white tam, and Albert Glassnap who sports a jaunty cap of his own.  The picture was taken about 1931.

Estella certainly was not a flapper but the styles of the day were influenced by the flapper mind-set of flourish and flair.  The fashions changed from quaint ruffles and lace to dropped waistlines, no waistlines, flashy dropped flounces with fancy ruffles, bell-flared skirts which accentuated the body’s natural movement and rhythm, and, for some, dropped necklines as well.  The long “V” neckline or waist-length beads contributed to the look.  The beads were often long enough to twirl and tease which added to the flapper reputation.  Hair styles were short, wavy and fluffy.  By the thirties Stella’s clothing seemed to take on a more conservative trend and although her hair was still wavy, she adopted a more tailored look.  In the upper left photo Stella is in the center with her aunt Ada Aldrich on the left and sister, Cecil, on the right (probably taken about 1924).  In the upper right photo (taken about 1927) Stella is standing with her future husband, Albert Glassnap, who is also dressed in style-of-the-day attire.  His Broad-brimmed hat and overcoat are reminiscent of prohibition era Chicago mob attire.  All of these pictures of Stella are essentially in chronological order from about 1924 to 1930.  Note the long, dropped “V” look of necklines, trim and beads. 

Flapper Fashions of the Roaring Twenties