Lilly Dache Hat, Vintage 60s Bubble Turban

Who was Lilly Dache

Born in France, Lilly Dache learned hatmaking working for Parisian milliners Suzanne Talbot and Reboux before immigrating to the U.S. as a teenager. She moved to New York in 1924 with only $13 and took a job at the Bonnet Shop, a tiny milliner’s shop. Eventually, Lilly and a co-worker bought the business.

In 1937, Dache bought her own building at 18 East Fifth-Sixth Street. She was one of the most prominent milliners in the U.S. in the 1930s through the 1950s, receiving several awards. She was known for creating “half hats”, the “profile hat,”  the “snood”, a visored cap for women workers during World War II, and a “stand-up” beret. In 1938, one of her hats — a turban with a complexion veil (tinted green across the eyes, rose across the cheeks) — was sealed in a time capsule at the New York World’s Fair, to be opened in 1938. Lilly designed the iconic towering fruit turban headdress for Carmen Miranda, worn in That Night in Rio (1941).

In her heyday, her business occupied seven stories of a ten-story building. There were two fitting rooms for celebrities, one in silver for brunettes, one in gold for blondes. Her fitting room on the wholesale floor had “walls padded in tufted pink satin”. She moved in high society and always wore one of her own hats when she went out.

In 1946, her autobiography, Talking Through My Hats, became a bestseller. In 1958, she discovered Halston in Chicago and brought him to New York. When she closed her business in 1968, Loretta Young bought her last 30 hats. After retiring, she licensed the use of her name. She died in 1989.

Labels: Lilly Dache, Lilly Dache Debs, Lilly’s Dillys, Dachettes (introduced in the 1950s), Mademoiselle Lilly (introduced in the 1950s), Young Modes (for young women). The trademark office also shows Drifting, Dashing, Lillymatic, and Dachelle as marks owned by Dache. There are at least 37 examples of Dache’s hats in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection.