The habit of whitening sun helmets is a bit like getting shoes polished. The only difference is that shoe polish preserves the leather and prolongs its life, whereas any white substance on a sun helmet can only have visual and reflective reasons. For a military and civilian environment alike, that may have been sufficient reason why it was done. And how? I tried it myself – the blanco’ing of a sun helmet. Continue reading
Category Archives: Cork
Pith vs. Cork – Not One and the Same
While the term “pith helmet” is commonly used to describe any sun or summer helmet, it isn’t exactly accurate. Pith has entered the lexicon much as “Xerox” means “photocopy” or “Kleenex” means “facial tissue” – at least in English. The difference is that while some corporate brands have become generic terms, pith is not a brand but a material. Continue reading
Pith Helmet with Radiator Grill
Extravagant shape & technical innovation: Barnard´s Patent from 1899. (Author´s collection)
In 1899, London hat maker Walter Barnard of Jermyn Street, St. James’s, patented a fashionable helmet with a metal grill between sweatband and hat to allow ventilation. Here is an example of this helmet and later a variation whose ventilation strip was produced in rubber. Continue reading
The Rodel Helmet of Thomas Townend & Co. – A Surprising Construction
An extremely rare, in fact possibly the only known survivor, of Thomas Townend’s double-helmet commercially named the “Rodel.” (Author’s collection)