Peach basket hat

A peach basket hat (sometimes fruit basket hat) is a millinery design that resembles an upturned country basket of the style typically used to collect fruit. Generally it is made of straw or similar material and it often has a trimming of flowers and ribbons. Some models may also feature a veil or draped fabric covering. It was introduced in around 1908 and caused some controversy over the succeeding year due to its extreme dimensions and decorations. It had revivals – designs were at this stage more modest – in the 1930s and 1950s.

The name peach basket hat became popularly used around 1908 in the United States. An advertisement in the Pittsburgh Gazette describes "the new Peach Basket Hats", also showing an illustration of a flower-decorated straw hat in the shape of a basket. While the term peach basket does not appear to have been used in the British fashion press, descriptions involving fruit baskets were. A 1908 comment piece in The Guardian by Evelyn Sharp described a variety of oversized designs, including one similar to Roundhead headgear, noting that they were: "hideously popular" and came trimmed with a variety of flower, fruit and bird motifs. Sharp added: "A basket of market produce pinned on the head would have much the same effect. For next to the difficulty of finding the head of the wearer underneath the hat of to-day comes the difficulty of finding hat shape under the trimming of to-day".

A 1907 article in the American edition of Vogue had predicted that the future of hats was: "in size colossal" and, two years on, the magazine suggested that the growing popularity of photography had inspired many of these new millinery designs, as couturiers were exposed to images from other cultures and countries. The inspiration for the peach basket millinery design was said to be the oversized styles worn by women of the Congo.

Although the peach basket was launched as one of the 1908 season's new looks, it was not greeted with universal acclaim. The Los Angeles Herald, reported in 1909 that the US National Association of Retail Milliners had: "launched the aeroplane as the new style of headgear, put a ban on the peach basket hat and decreed the three-cornered hat of the Louis XVI period as the stunning bonnet for the coming winter months". The milliners, who declared the peach basket (or fruit basket) dead, had suffered a poor season of sales. The association's president admitted: "The last season proved disastrous, short and unprofitable owing to the launching of extreme styles such as the fruit basket hat...a concerted effort has been made to tone down all attempts to introduce freak creations".

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