Miss Pye cloche hat collection is Object of the Month for June at Bishop’s Stortford Museum

With Royal Ascot getting under way on June 17, Bishop’s Stortford Museum curator Alex has chosen some beautiful 1920s cloche hats from its Miss Pye collection as June’s Object of the Month.

Miss Pye lived at Langham House, in Hadham Road, from the age of six until her death in 1996. She was a strong supporter of the museum and left many of her possessions to the Local History Museum, recording her Edwardian childhood and life as a young woman.

The cloche hat was invented in 1908 by milliner Caroline Reboux. Its name is derived from cloche, the French word for bell. Adornments of feathers and applique were common and the upturned brim became trendy in the late 1920s.

They went out of fashion around 1934, but were briefly in again in the 1960s, the 1980s and during 2007.

Being very much a woman of her time, Miss Pye was a true fashionista and socialite who was known to be never without a hat.

Visit the Miss Pye gallery on the second floor of the museum at South Mill Arts to see these and her other fashionable accessories.

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