Gilded Age Opera Hat Etiquette

“Newland, I’m so happy you left your ‘I have an opera-hat’ badge at home!” — Young men might spare themselves considerable trouble, and their friends some annoyance, by pinning on the lapel of their dress-coat a badge marked “opera-hat.” Then everybody will be aware that they have one, and that they have had intelligence enough to leave it with their other things upstairs. Thus, the soul aim they seem to have in view will be quietly and unostentatiously served.

— Photo from “The Age of Innocence” source, Pinterest

One of the follies of would-be fashion, of which, usually, only very young men are guilty, is carrying a crush or opera-hat into a drawing-room at a formal party or reception. It is strange that they do not know any better: that common sense does not tell them that to go into a cloak-room and leave their over shoes, cane, and overcoat, and then carry their hat into company is the essence of absurdity. The name of the hat they appear so anxious to display should give them the proper information as to its disposal. 

It is an opera-hat, and designed for the opera, where it is convenient to retain it after leaving a box to enter the lobby or foyer, as nobody would care to be bareheaded. But to go into a drawing-room with the hat under one's arm, and nurse it all evening, advertises ignorance of society and etiquette with unpleasant conspicuousness. A man might with equal fitness carry around his overshoes or his boot-jack or his toilet articles. The sole object he can have must be to let the company know that he has an opera-hat, not a very valuable or remarkable acquisition, since such a head-covering can be bought anywhere for $5 or $6.

Young men might spare themselves considerable trouble, and their friends some annoyance, by pinning on the lapel of their dress-coat a badge marked “opera-hat.” Then everybody will be aware that they have one, and that they have had intelligence enough to leave it with their other things upstairs. Thus, the soul aim they seem to have in view will be quietly and unostentatiously served. —The New York Times, 1880

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia