Kitchen Hats: Where No Gaga Has Gone Before

The pot calling the kettle yellow: We love Madeleine's steamy number.

Why?

The latest evidence of our long-term suspicion that Lady Gaga is inspired almost exclusively by the British Pathé film archive comes in the form of Kitchen Hats, a 1959 newsreel in which British housewives literally shove a kitchen appliance on their head and pose for a designer who then recreates it in fabric.

“The days when diamonds and furs didn’t mix with pots and pans appear to have gone for good” marvels the narrator. Above is a photo of Lady Gaga having forgot to put the lid on a blender of cake mix.

Our first uncanny canister moment that just screamed Gaga, also known as a “Garchive discovery”, was on the 24^th of August when we stumbled across a lady in the 1950s wearing gigantic telephone earrings:

HELLO BERYL: Was Lady Gaga’s Telephone Obsession Inspired by British actress Beryl Reid?

Then when Lady Gaga marched up to grab an award in a meat dress, our telephone ears started ringing once more as we recalled this 1920s video of men wearing exclusively calves tails:

According To Custom (1928): Young apprentice butchers celebrate an initiation by wearing calves tails and dancing in a public fountain.

Below are photos from our latest Garchive discovery Kitchen Hats. Click on the stills to watch the wonderful 1950s newsreel. And if you happen to know of any other Garchive moments in British Pathé then please do get in touch via our Facebook group.

Deirdre causes a fashion pan-demic with this saucy headpiece.

Lady Gaga’s bad romance with the British Pathe archive continues on www.britishpathe.com

Halloween Come Early: Jaunting Easter Hat Parade

Don't move Margaret

A fan of British Pathé, Sam in Leamington Spa, emailed asking if we have any footage of tarantulas. We may well do, although tarantulas wouldn’t have been jotted down in the canister notes unless they were the main content, which is unlikely for a newsreel. However, this rather terrifying tarantula hat stars in an Easter bonnet parade from 1955. Easter has several odd traditions, and sadly hat parades are in decline, but they were one all the Easter rage. Hundreds of women would line up to flaunt their homemade creations in front of a panel of fashion experts and town councillors. This clip shows helicopter hats, race horse hats, a ballerina hat, hats that have been fashioned from straw, paper and plants. Watch this Easter Hat parade and others here

Trapeze Wedding: Couple head for the clouds

The sun’s out in London today and so we felt like finding something sunny and funny. We’re loving this footage of a trapeze wedding in the sky from the summer of 1959. The wedding video begins with a topless man assembling scaffolding while a merry narrator speculates over what the cause of such “highly unconventional behaviour” could be.   There are several enjoyable details: a trapeze wedding cake with a terrifying swinging doll, two very toothy 1950s bridesmaids looking bemused and a Union Jack flying high above the groom. The 1950s narration is predictably cheesy and a tour de force of tenuous puns – “this cake is really going up in the world” / “One should be on top of the world on one’s wedding day” etc. etc.

Watch the full clip here