I've been looking for something amusing to wind up the centennial year of the foxtrot, and I found it in the November 17, 1914, issue of The Richmond Times-Dispatch: some fashion advice for the foxtrotting ladies in the store advertisement shown at left:
Fox-Trotting Without a Fox Trot Hat
is like joy riding on a steam roller.
How do I follow up a line like that? I can only suggest reading the rest of the ad (click to enlarge) for more delightfully fulsome language.
For historical dancers, this is a reminder that during the 1910s, dancing in a hat at an afternoon thé dansant was perfectly proper, though judging by the advertisement, either not everyone agreed or not everyone succeeded in finding a suitable hat:
The frock Dansant really must find its compliment in the proper Hat. Yet, how often is it not so? Echo answers, "Often."
Noted dancer and fashion icon Irene Castle also advised close-fitting hats in Modern Dancing (New York, 1914):
it is dancing that has made the small hat of tulle or lace fashionable for afternoons in place of wide picture-hats. "Big hats are unpleasant to dance in."
Many photographs of Irene in the 1910s show her dancing in a hat -- including her famous "Dutch cap", one very similar to that shown in the ad (though with a more dramatic feather decoration in front), or even one with a small brim.
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