Top hats, tails and villains: Fashion, fur and a toxic legacy

This October, our Outfit of the Month fashion talk takes a darker look at Victorian fashion, exploring two striking examples of 1870s men’s attire – and the toxic legacy hidden behind the production of fur felt hats.

Stephanie Wood, the Museum’s Kaihāpai Taonga/Curator, Fashion and Textiles, will examine a black beaver-fur top hat and a black worsted wool dress suit from the Museum’s collection.

Top hats were a symbol of fashion and elegance in the Victorian era, but their production could come with a serious cost. The process used to cure fur pelts and turn them into felt for hats, known as carotting, involved mercuric nitrate. Prolonged exposure to mercury vapours could cause mercury poisoning, including a condition known as erethism, or ‘mad hatter disease’.

The featured top hat is part of the collection of the Randal family of ‘Titchfield’, later ‘Holly Lodge’, at Papaiti, Whanganui. The second item is a black worsted wool dress suit made by London tailor Curtis & Brooks of Fleet Street.

📅 Friday 2 October
🕧 12.15pm
📍 Whanganui Regional Museum
🎫 Free admission
💛 Koha is always appreciated

No need to book. Everyone is welcome. The top hat and dress suit will remain on display throughout October.