Here’s a 1920s cloche hat for an American Girl Doll! She doesn’t smoke cigarettes or rub burned cork on her eyelids, but she’s about two steps away from rolling up her stockings and rouging her knees…. or she would be if I knew how to get rouge out of vinyl.
Being a fashionable dolly only goes so far.
(Ignore the Silver Robe Francaise that she’s wearing. She lives in a state of temporal and existential confusion. What can I say? She’s a doll. She spends most of her life with sewing pins stuck into her torso. That’d unhinge anybody.)
The pattern for this little number came from a now-apparently-and-tragically-defunct doll hat company called Cathy Stuart Designs.
I found the company in the back of a magazine about doll collecting, and sent away for the catalogue. I bought two kits from them – this 1920s cloche and a lovely silk Gainsborough hat, sewed them up, found that a) the hats were fabulous and b) the fit was perfect for an American Girl Doll, so I sent away to order more, and then the company’s phone was disconnected and my mail orders were retunred to sender.
All of this happened in the span of two months – and I am still shocked at how a company could go from selling kits in a national magazine to no-existence that FAST. It was a terrible shame – they designed great hats!
Terrible! Do you have a photo of the Gainsborough?
I do have photos of the Gainsborough, but they are awfully over-exposed and generally awful. The hat lives at my mum's house right at the moment so I can't take new ones until I visit again…