Formal British-Made Women's Caps and Flat Caps — Voted by the Community

Caps in Britain are closely tied to the wool trade. The flat cap can be traced to the sixteenth century in northern England, when it was more often called a bonnet. In 1571 an Act of Parliament required males over six, apart from the nobility and "persons of degree", to wear woollen caps on Sundays and holidays to support the wool trade. The act was repealed in 1597. In Scotland, the knitted blue bonnet, a soft woollen cap with a flat crown, dates from at least the sixteenth century, and Stewarton and Kilmarnock became centres of bonnet making. By the end of the nineteenth century, a fuller eight-panelled cap with a button on top, now known as the newsboy or baker boy cap, was worn by men and boys, and it stayed popular into the early twentieth century. Many British caps were made from tweeds and other woollen cloths woven in English and Scottish mills. Women's caps use much the same shapes, cloths and construction, with differences mainly in proportion and fit.