What is this bonnet/headgear called

[super8mm]

Can someone tell me the proper name for this bonnet/headgear?

If it is accurate what time period would it have been worn?

When would be a proper time to wear one, casual, semi formal ??

Thanks

[Steve Ashton]

It is a modern re-creation of a bonnet popularized by the TV show "Outlander" which is from the books by Diana Gabaldon.



It goes by many names but is a modern interpretation of a "Scots bonnet".




It is sometimes called a Balmoral but Balmorals today are different.



It is also sometimes call a "Tam" or "Tam 'o Shanter" but again a Tam today is different.



All of which there have been many many varieties over the years.

[super8mm]

Wow it has gone through a lot of changes over the years

Thanks

[revmacian]

It is a modern re-creation of a bonnet popularized by the TV show "Outlander" which is from the books by Diana Gabaldon.



It goes by many names but is a modern interpretation of a "Scots bonnet".




It is sometimes called a Balmoral but Balmorals today are different.



It is also sometimes call a "Tam" or "Tam 'o Shanter" but again a Tam today is different.



All of which there have been many many varieties over the years.

After seeing the images you've posted I'm wondering if the Tam 'o Shanter is the predecessor to the modern beret.

[OC Richard]

Can someone tell me the proper name for this bonnet/headgear?

Since it's a recent invention, you would have to find out which Hollywood costume designer first invented it, and what they called it.

Is it accurate what time period would it have been worn?

It's a modern film costume creation AFAIK created for the Outlander costumes.

For films that are intending to portray some period in the past they're not accurate.

When would be a proper time to wear one?

It's part of a modern television series costume (Outlander) so the correct milieu for it would be cosplaying one of the Outlander characters who wear them.



For sure people wear parts of Hollywood costumes as part of their ordinary dress! Like wearing a Clint Eastwood hat from one of his Western films.

If we're talking historical Highland bonnets (as opposed to Outlander costume hats) being historians requires us to look at the evidence.

We can look at our earliest images to tell us what was worn at the time those images were made. We can't know what things looked like prior to our earliest images, and in the words of a former professor of mine, "never guess. Guesses are always wrong."

Early 18th century Scottish bonnets. As we can see they look nothing whatsoever like the Outlander hats.

[super8mm]

I did find one on International War Museum that was still had a stiff top, but if it was worn a lot and got droopy it would lay flat down to his ear. it was labeled as a TOM O’ SHANTER HAT worn by Lt. Frank Coutts, 5th Black Watch, attached 11th Cameron Highlanders. Landed in France 5th January 1917.

[Steve Ashton]

After seeing the images you've posted I'm wondering if the Tam 'o Shanter is the predecessor to the modern beret.

The Tam O' Shanter is usually shown as sewn from sections of woven fabric, while what we call the beret is of shaped felted wool.
More like a Balmoral.

Historically the Beret of the Basque goes as far back as the Basque people. Documented to be of the Neolithic period.

It is more than likely that the two developed independently as many human cultures had a hat without a brim from unformed felt and/or sewn sections.
Just as the predecessor of the kilt. Many human cultures had a garment without legs.

[Pleater]

At one time there were fines for not wearing a felted cap made in Britain.
The Tudors wore double ones, the Scots wore them flopping every which way and although termed a blue bonnet they could be various colours.
I make them in crochet - my mother's mother used to make them back when hats were de rigueur - along with gloves. I made them with bands and peaks and sold them when a student back in the early 1970s.
I've worked out how to knit them by hand and machine, but I think that the crochet variant is the most satisfactory in terms of structure as it doesn't rely on felting the yarn to get its shape.
There are multicolour fairisle knitting patterns where the shaping is in the knitting, the patterns are devised so as to allow for the decreasing - they begin at the brim and increase out to the edge of the upper disk, then reduce down to the centre.

[OC Richard]

I have to caution people that the military TOS or Tam O Shanter is a 20th century invention made in a completely different manner than traditional Scottish bonnets, and has nothing whatsoever to do with any Scottish bonnet, civilian or military, worn at any time prior to World War One.

Here's a newspaper article discussing its invention and introduction.



Traditional Scottish bonnets are knit and then shaped.

The military TOS introduced during World War One (seen in the newspaper article above) is made in an utterly different way, being made from flat woven cloth, the various pieces cut to a pattern (like a shirt etc) and sewn together. Thus it's an assemblage of flat pieces of cloth yardage with seams.

I know it can be confusing when people mix photos of traditional Scottish bonnets and TOS's, but note that they have quite different shapes.

The resemblance between a 20th century military TOS and the Outlander knit bonnets might be pure coincidence, or perhaps the Outlander costume people saw images of WWI TOS hats and imagined them to be traditional 18th century Highland bonnets.

It wouldn't be the first time Outlander costumes include 20th century things: the Outlander tartans are based on the "reproduction" colour-scheme invented by D C Dalgleish in the late 1940s.

Here's one of the Outlander tartans compared to MacKay in Dalgleish's "reproduction colours" (what Lochcarron calls "weathered colours"). Dalgleish invented this colour-scheme around 1948.

[Macman]

Here's a newspaper article discussing its invention and introduction.

It's interesting that the article calls it a Balmoral, Richard. I've called it both Balmoral and TOS, but it was called a Balmoral when I was in the Reserves.