Shelton and Co.

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.