Rare Fair Isle smoking cap

We have accepted this knitted smoking cap into the collection. It’s a wonderful blend of Victoriana and Shetland design! The smoking cap was at-home leisure wear for men of a certain social standing in the Victorian period. The cap kept the head warm in drafty and poorly-heated Victorian homes and stopped men’s hair from smelling of smoke. They were modelled on North African and Middle Eastern headwear, an exotic fashion trend at the time. They are usually made of rich materials like velvet and silk with ornate surface embroidery and a tassel, and Shetland Museum has two of this type, but this is the first fair isle smoking cap we have seen.

The cap is knitted from the centre crown to the lower band, and is lined in duck egg blue cotton sateen. It was knitted in a tight gauge using 4-ply “Scotch” wool, so-named by Shetland knitters because the yarn was bought from the Scottish mainland to make a very smooth, worsted fabric. The lining is a duck egg blue cotton sateen. It belonged to a gentleman from Unst, who was born in the 1860s but spent most of his life in Edinburgh before retiring to Unst in the 1920s. It is believed to have been knitted in Unst.