Mad As A Hatter

It is well known that wearing a hat was common until the early 20th century. It is subsequent disappearance: an enigma. The norm of undecorated heads.
There are tall hats and short ones, with feathers and fox tails. Fedora, beret, cowboy, jackman, cotelero, homburg, bowler. There are corduroy hats and straw hats, professional hats and witch hats. Gatsby, panama, floppy, bowler, trilby, bucket, beanie, tristol. Carmen Miranda sang with bananas on her head, and that was also a hat. Fascinator.
There are two reasons why it is difficult to read the Hatter as a fictional character rather than a critique of the civilizing reason of fashion.
Perhaps, by disregarding the distance between fiction and critique, one might brush away the century of dust that buries the ill-mannered who wear hats indoors.
The first reason the Hatter is mad is due to a lapse against authority. At the grand concert of the Queen of Hearts, he sang: “Twinkle, twinkle, little bat, How I wonder what you’re at!” and the beast declared, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!’.
Words get tangled in anxious tongues, and a misdirected sentence can cause cosmological disorder: Time believed that the Hatter wanted to kill him, and in an act of revenge, it has trapped him at tea time for eternity.
The second reason the Hatter is mad is what is commonly referred to as an “occupational hazard”. Medical sciences attribute his madness to symptoms of poisoning caused by the use of nitrobenzene in the hat felting process. “Mad as a hatter” was used in 18th-century England to denote madness, which a doctor would describe as a delirium caused by mercury poisoning.
There, a fashion statement that is also a temporal equation: The eccentricity of a hat is directly proportional to the corrosion of its creator’s sanity. The most dangerous hats are those whose shapes are not understood, that do not fit into classifications of morphology or origin.
It is six in the evening, and the Hatter poses a riddle to Alice: How is a raven like a writing desk?
The satirical nature of the Hatter is to blur the boundaries between elegance and ridiculous exuberance. The Mad Hatter works on commission, crafting unique pieces, but sometimes the cost is too high: being possessed by artisanal mania.
The Hatter is an amphibian of two supposedly irreconcilable worlds: fashion and popular laughter. His headpieces promote elevation through elegance but also grotesque insurrection towards the guillotine.

Mad As A Hatter

It is well known that wearing a hat was common until the early 20th century. It is subsequent disappearance: an enigma. The norm of undecorated heads.
There are tall hats and short ones, with feathers and fox tails. Fedora, beret, cowboy, jackman, cotelero, homburg, bowler. There are corduroy hats and straw hats, professional hats and witch hats. Gatsby, panama, floppy, bowler, trilby, bucket, beanie, tristol. Carmen Miranda sang with bananas on her head, and that was also a hat. Fascinator.
There are two reasons why it is difficult to read the Hatter as a fictional character rather than a critique of the civilizing reason of fashion.
Perhaps, by disregarding the distance between fiction and critique, one might brush away the century of dust that buries the ill-mannered who wear hats indoors.
The first reason the Hatter is mad is due to a lapse against authority. At the grand concert of the Queen of Hearts, he sang: “Twinkle, twinkle, little bat, How I wonder what you’re at!” and the beast declared, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!’.
Words get tangled in anxious tongues, and a misdirected sentence can cause cosmological disorder: Time believed that the Hatter wanted to kill him, and in an act of revenge, it has trapped him at tea time for eternity.
The second reason the Hatter is mad is what is commonly referred to as an “occupational hazard”. Medical sciences attribute his madness to symptoms of poisoning caused by the use of nitrobenzene in the hat felting process. “Mad as a hatter” was used in 18th-century England to denote madness, which a doctor would describe as a delirium caused by mercury poisoning.
There, a fashion statement that is also a temporal equation: The eccentricity of a hat is directly proportional to the corrosion of its creator’s sanity. The most dangerous hats are those whose shapes are not understood, that do not fit into classifications of morphology or origin.
It is six in the evening, and the Hatter poses a riddle to Alice: How is a raven like a writing desk?
The satirical nature of the Hatter is to blur the boundaries between elegance and ridiculous exuberance. The Mad Hatter works on commission, crafting unique pieces, but sometimes the cost is too high: being possessed by artisanal mania.
The Hatter is an amphibian of two supposedly irreconcilable worlds: fashion and popular laughter. His headpieces promote elevation through elegance but also grotesque insurrection towards the guillotine.

PHOTOGRAPHY FRANCISCO FERRARI
MODEL & WORDS FRANCISCO ROSSO
EXECUTIVE PRODUCTION & STYLING JULIAN CAMPS · ARCHIVO
HAIR & MAKE-UP JAZMIN CALCARAMI FROM KABUKI MAKE-UP SCHOOL
PHOTOGRAPHY EDIT IGNACIO ROMUALDI
PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT AZUL ROSSETTI
SPECIAL THANKS DELFINA MARTINEZ MENDIBERRY

HATS FLOR TELLADO