While today everyone pretty much buys everything on Amazon.com or some other online retailer back not all that long ago catalogs provided a way for people to browse products from the comfort of their homes. This interwar catalog from Ellwood Hats Ltd. successors to J. Ellwood & Sons of London shows how sun/pith helmets were marketed.
While we typically write about the history, use and even the evolution of military sun helmets and other tropical headdress, I felt it necessary to address another aspect of sun/pith helmets. Recently, First Lady of the United States Melania Trump was called out for simply choosing to wear a pith helmet as a part of a “safari” inspired outfit.
In my world, the pith is not a sun helmet, but a crown.
And, to the wearers I study, the coronation is justified.
For just over a year I have been a staunch collector of not sun helmets, like my dear friend Stuart – although I dream of graduating to such an assemblage – but antique safari and big game hunting photographs, none of which are complete without firearm, fauna, and of course, the very symbol of adventure, the pith helmet. Continue reading