This hat was designed by Oliver Messel for The Tempest at the Old Vic in 1939. Messel and director George Devine, set the production in the early 17th century, the time when the play was first performed (1611). The hat was originally unidentified, but the high, tapering crown, flattened at the top and trimmed with feathers, is so characteristic of the period, that it was possible from this alone to identify the production from which it came. It was worn by one of the Court, who are shipwrecked on Prospero's island, but whose clothes, miraculously, are unaffected by the sea water.

There are two hats from The Tempest in the Messel collection, made to the same design but differing in the height of the crown and the width of the brim. This might be because the higher crown and wider brim may be for a more important character, or the proportions may be different because of the different physical build of the actors for whom they were made.

Oliver Messel (1904-1978) was Britain's leading theatre designer from the early 1930s to the mid 1950s, working in every aspect of entertainment - ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue - as well as in interior decoration and textile design. His lavish, painterly and romantic designs informed by period styles, were perfectly in tune with his times and earned him an international reputation. By 1960, however, Messel's style had become unfashionable, having no sympathy with the new 'kitchen sink' school of theatre. He increasingly concentrated on his non-theatrical painting and designing and eventually retired to the Caribbean, where he began a new career designing and building highly idiosyncratic luxury villas.