The costume designer, Adrian, made it fabulous and fashionable though. Frank Baum and his illustrators depicted his Wicked Witch of the West with the (by then) expected conical hat when The Wizard of Oz was written in 1900, and when MGM put her on-screen in 1939, of course, she had a pointy hat. From here on out, the English vision of a witch spread and gained traction, and as all cultural images do, this version of the witch spread.Īnd then Hollywood came calling.
This is an era when witch hunts and superstition were beginning to fade, the enlightenment was around the corner and mass media depictions of the witch were becoming more fantastical, rather than warnings of a real threat. The first witch we see depicted with her famous pointy hat is from this woodcut, date to around 1720, long after the quaker hats were out of fashion. As the quaker hats grew more out of style, as associated with another age, they remained associated with witches. This also may have been true in America, where Quakers were also persecuted (does anyone else remember the Quaker woman accused of witchcraft in the YA novel The Witch of Blackbird Pond?). It’s just what you were for a portrait with your grandkids.Īs Cox notes, the prejudice against Quakers, and especially Quaker women, was widespread in England, and it coincided with the witch not just becoming a focus of prosecution and persecutions in the 17th century but also with the witch becoming a popular figure. Obviously a witch! This painting from 1675 also shows a woman with a witchy looking chapeau, but again, it was the fashion of the day. Look at that woman speaking publicly! About God and the scriptures. As you can see in this painting of a Quaker meeting in the 1670s. And that involved … tall, black, conical hats with large brims. And all those things matched with what England already thought of witches, who were being hunted relentlessly in the mid 17th century as well.Īt the same time as the Quakers were gaining publicity, they were adopting the fashions of the day and their own distinct looks. As Cox explains, they were seen as evil, heretical, and … extremely horny? Oh yeah. George Fox founded the society following the English Civil war and their belief in ideas like women’s equality, that God was experienced directly and that people were not inherently sinful got them a lot of attention and pushback. The Quakers, or Society of Friends, were (and still are!) a religious group that grew to prominence and infamy in the 1600s in England. And so the image of the witch’s hat is tied in with English fashion and English prejudices … and also oatmeal. What about the witch with her very particular hat? For one, that image is highly associated with the image of the witch in England and thus came to represent her in the anglophone world even to this day. And yes, because Jews, like witches, were (wrongly) associated with the devil and fun stuff like murdering children, the Judenhat became associated with sorcery.īut that’s not quite the same hat as a witch’s hat, and the Judenhat is more rightly associated with sorcery (and thus men). In 1215 the fourth Lateran Council required all Jews to wear the Judenhat or horned skull cap and centuries later this became a feature of many anti-Semitic tropes and beliefs. The origin tale for the witch’s hat that I’ve seen quite often myself, and which Cox refutes, is that it is derived from the Judenhat The Judenhat was one of many sartorial markers that were required to be worn by Jews beginning in the middle ages.
Nope, it’s not about alewives! Sorry, bad Wikipedia article! And she busts a few of the big myths about the Witch’s hat right off the back. (No, the conical hate is not a symbol of a cone of power, sorry Wiccans.) The story of the witch’s conical hat, is, like so many stories of the witch, a tale of female power and fear.īut it’s also a story about fashion, which is why this recent video of dress historian Abby Cox is such a great exploration of the topic. Now we’ve talked already this month about how witches “flew”, but how did that very distinctive hat become associated with magical women, especially the kind that like to get a bit wicked?Īs with many elements of the witch as she’s understood in pop culture, and indeed many elements of magic itself, the story is complicated and has a lot more to do with prejudice and persecution than it does with magic and the mystical. With her green skin, broom, and wide-brimmed conical hat, the Witch is an icon. There are few things more iconic at Halloween time than the classic image of a witch.
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