Chapeau Bras

A bicorne or a modified tricorne that is often folded and carried under the arm as part of ceremonial, diplomatic, or naval dress.

Style instead dictated a preferred mode of carrying the ubiquitous three-cornered hat,
eventually known as the tricorne,22 which was reversed and tucked beneath the arm. In
the 1760s and 1770s, a special flat version was developed, which was solely to be held and
not worn: the chapeau bras. On one occasion in 1751, a novel insult was traded by this
means. At an assembly, when Lord Hervey stood holding out his upturned hat, Lord
Cobham spat in it, for a guinea wager. 23His attempt to claim it as a joke was not well
received, and public opinion sided with the affronted victim. The colloquialism ‘to spit
in one’s hat and wipe it’ thereupon entered the slang currency of the day, referring to the
clumsiness both of the insult and the subsequent apology.

Dress for Deference and Dissent: Hats and the Decline of Hat Honour

By: Penelope J. Corfield