Vintage Photos of Elegant Millinery by Madame Agnès

Madame Agnes (late 1800s-1949) was France’s most popular milliner. She designed hats that were popular from the late 1920s until the 1940s. She was famous for cutting the brims of her hats while they were worn by her customers. Her shop was located on the Rue Saint-Honoré.

She associated with people in the art circles of Paris and styled hats that were both abstract and unique. She preferred wearing only black fashions, fx. in 1929 she wore black satin frocks designed by Vionnet. Her clothes were embellished with bright jewelry like red coral, jade or lapis lazuli.

Madame Agnes

Madame Agnes in her shop in Paris, 1935

Edward Steichen, Dorothy Smart, hat by Madame Agnès, 1926

Madame Jean Lassalle hat by Madame Agnès, Madame d’Ora, 1929

Portrait of the milliner Agnès by Madame d’Ora, Paris, 1928-1931

Model in hat of bird of paradise feathers by Madame Agnès, spangled jacket by Maggy Rouff, photo by George Hoyningen-Huene, Harper’s Bazaar, 1935

Beautiful Vintage Millinery by Lilly Daché (1898 – 1989)

Lilly Daché (1898 – 1989) was a French milliner and fashion designer. During her career she was the most famous milliner in the United States.

In her native France, Lilly Daché was considered (by her mother, no less) a homely child. Lilly’s thin, strong face with its green cat’s eyes and framing of straight red hair were deemed ugly. Not too surprisingly, little Lilly turned to adornment to amend her failings: braiding cherries into her hair & making hats from grape leaves. Her passion creating beauty took her to Paris to study hatmaking (after all, as Lilly says, if your hat is correct, it can compensate for a world of faults).

Lilly Daché designed for Hollywood films and had many clients who were movie-stars. International star Maria Montez loved her Lillys so much, she created a scene at Chicago’s Union Station when she discovered 2 of her 8 Daché hatboxes were missing. Never mind that she was being reunited with her medal-strewn soldier-husband whom she hadn’t seen for a year–Maria had bigger fish to fry. “I want my Daché hats!” she stormed after briefly smiling for the photographers.

Her designs and hats are valued highly by collectors of vintage clothes. Both the designer Halston and the hair stylist Kenneth worked for her before going into business for themselves.

Lily Dache checking out her hat design via

Hat by Lilly Daché via

Barbara Mullen wearing a headpiece by Lilly Daché, New York, 1951. Photo by Richard Avedon via

Hat by Lilly Daché via

Carmen Miranda wearing hat/turban by Lilly Daché via

Elegant Vintage Fashion Photos: 1950s Veiled Hats

Irving Penn, Model Jean Patchett in black and white hat with veil, scarf and top, Vogue, 1950 via

Jacques Fath, Hat with Veil, photographed by Willy Maywald, 1951

Lillian Marcuson in Lily Dache hat, photo by Milton Greene, 1951 via

Mary Jane Russell photo by Larry Gordon, 1952 via

Ivy Nicholson © Room wearing Givenchy’s stiff-veiled circlet, Photo Nat Farbman, 1952 via

Bettina Graziani Photo by Georges Dambier via

Vintage French Millinery by Jean Barthet

Jean Barthet (1920–2000) was a French milliner who first rose to prominence in the 1950s as hat maker to Hollywood and French film stars, also designing hats for films such as The Young Girls of Rochefort.

He helped to define fashionable hat styles – including the bucket hat, pillbox hat and fedora – that predominated throughout the 1960s and collaborated with major couture houses.

Jean Barthet, Hat, photographed by Henry Clarke, 1955 via

Denise Sarrault in Jean Barthet Beret, photographed by Georges Saad, 1957 via

Capucine in Jean Barthet, Hat, photographed by Willy Maywald, 1950s via

Brigitte Bardot in Jean Barthet Hat, 1961 via