Acceso usuarios
Veronika Hyden-Hanscho
In the second half of the seventeenth century, the Viennese nobility introduced French fashion as a consumption pattern for Austrian elites. Beaver and vicuña hats, made of raw materials from Canada, Peru, West Africa, the Sudan and the Levant, were part and parcel of the new French fashion. French hats were globalized commodities appreciated throughout Europe, although the globalized nature and composition of the product remained completely invisible. This article considers Vienna as a remote area, far from the booming and, in historiography, well-explored European Atlantic ports and capitals, and investigates how Vienna participated in particular global fashion trends. Specifically, it focuses on the social and economic impact of hats as a globalized consumer good on the local Viennese market. Based on an extensive analysis of archival sources, the article sheds light on consumption patterns of elites, practices of the trade in hats, and the consequences of the globalized hat market for local craft production. The globalization of the hat market entailed the immigration of fully trained hatters. Skilled craftsmen from France and Italy introduced new processing methods in Vienna, but this did not result in the dissemination of knowledge
