Puck — April 1877 — page 16: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page satirizes absurdly impractical hat fashions allegedly designed by Parisian fashion designers. The central large dark shape appears to be the "future hat" being mocked. The surrounding vignettes show ridiculous scenarios resulting from these oversized, unwieldy hat designs: women struggling to fit through doorways, people unable to sit at tables, figures being blown away or toppled by wind, and children dwarfed by enormous headwear. The satire targets the fashion industry's tendency to promote increasingly extreme styles, particularly the notoriously large hats popular in early 20th-century women's fashion. By depicting the practical impossibilities and absurd consequences, Puck ridicules both haute couture designers and society women who blindly follow such trends, regardless of functionality or common sense.