Hat Histories: Mr John

circa 1960: 'King of the Hatters', Mr John in his salon full of objet d'art on New York's Fifty-seventh street. Trying on a hat is the editor of the magazine, 'Vogue', Denise Lawson-Johnston. A Wonderful Time - Slim Aarons 

It's time again for another hat histories post! Today we will admire the hats of famous mid-century milliner Mr John!

Born John Pico Harberger in Munich, Germany, the future milliner originally studied medicine at the University of Lucerne, and art at the Sorbonne. After immigrating to the United States in 1919, John worked as his mother's (a Madame Laurel) apprentice as a dressmaker. He soon formed a millinery partnership with Frederick Hirst, known as John-Frederics. After leaving this earlier partnership, he started his own millinery company, Mr. John, Inc., in New York in 1948. I have included hats from Mr John's earlier collaboration with Frederics in this post too as they are extremely lovely!

Mr. John’s most famous work remains his millinery for Vivien Leigh in the film Gone With The Wind. He designed hats for many huge stars such as Mary Pickford, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Rosalind Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Hedy Lamarr, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and the Duchess of Windsor. With such glamorous clientele, Mr John was the Dior of hats a the time. Though his earlier work seemed to embrace whimsy, his later hats in the 1960's experimented with pure shapes and forms. Being popular and prolific as the company was in the 20th century means that today there are many Mr John designs both in museums and for sale to vintage collectors. Lets take a gander shall we?

1934, MET (oh holy swoon yes, please, hand it over!)

1940's, MET

1939-40, MET (perfect, I'll take on in black too please)

1935-45, MET (very Gone With the Wind no?)

1939-40, MET

1945, MET (perfect for cocktail hour!)

1948, MET

1955, MET

1952, MET

1950, MET (elegant simplicity)

mid 1950s, MET

1945-1955, Ryerson University

1949, LACMA

Raleigh Vintage  (I loved the pinked edges here!)

The Best Vintage Clothing

Palette London

Anothertme Vintage (you all know how I love a hat with berries!)

Etsy, here

Etsy, here

Etsy, here

 Working on this post series always has me itching to create new hats myself, I need to line up some new millinery projects! I'm glad to say there are many milliners still to cover in the future, until then, keep on hatting!