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Shelton and Co.

Top hat worn by a member of the Goddard family, mid 1800s

Description

Maker

  • Shelton and Co., British

Title

Top hat worn by a member of the Goddard family

Year

mid 1800s

Medium

Silk plush

Materials/Techniques

Materials

  • silk,
  • leather

Techniques

  • supplementary warp

Dimensions

Height: 19.1 cm (7 1/2 inches)

Type

  • Fashion,
  • Costume Accessories

Credit

Gift of the Goddard family

Object Number

2005.89.21

Projects & Publications

Publications

Artist Rebel Dandy

Men of Fashion

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Artist, Rebel, Dandy

April 26 - August 18, 2013

The collections of the RISD Museum of Art include this smart top hat from the late 19th-century Boston import firm Collins & Fairbanks Co. Advertising their wares in the MIT campus newspaper, The Tech, Collins & Fairbanks celebrated their specialty: young men's hats. Like the young men of Eton College, young American clothes-wearing men wouldn't have dared leave home with their heads uncovered.
Both the black top hat and the derby belonged to Harvard dean Byron Satterlee Hurlbut. The exceedingly rare white top hat was likely intended for wear at the Royal Ascot races, where pale blush was de rigeur. Even then, this shade of white is most unusual, as those described as white are usually pale gray. Shelton and Co., which created this hat for a member of the Providence-based Goddard family, was located just off the Pall Mall, London's center of haberdashery.

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in the public domain (CC0 1.0). This object is Top hat worn by a member of the Goddard family with the accession number of 2005.89.21. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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