A bergère hat is a flat-brimmed straw hat with a shallow crown, usually trimmed with ribbon and flowers. It could be worn in various ways with the brim folded back or turned up or down at whim.

It was widely worn in the mid-18th century, and versions may be seen in many British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 paintings of the period, such as The Swing

The Swing (painting)

The Swing , also known as The Happy Accidents of the Swing , is an 18th century oil painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. It is considered as one of the masterpieces of the rococo era.-The painting:...

 by Fragonard

Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Jean-Honoré Fragonard was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Régime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings , of which only five...

, and in portraits by Thomas Gainsborough

Thomas Gainsborough

Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter.-Suffolk:Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woolen goods. At the age of thirteen he impressed his father with his penciling skills so that he let...

 and Johann Zoffany

Johann Zoffany

Johan Zoffany, Zoffani or Zauffelij was a German neoclassical painter, active mainly in England...

, amongst others.

A nineteenth century version of the bergère hat formed part of the Dolly Varden

Dolly Varden (costume)

A Dolly Varden costume is a woman's outfit that was briefly fashionable from about 1869 to 1875 in Britain and America.-Name:Dolly Varden is a character from Charles Dickens's 1839 historical novel Barnaby Rudge set in 1780...

 ensembles popular in the early 1870s, as summed up in Alfred Lee's novelty song

Novelty song

A novelty song is a comical or nonsensical song, performed principally for its comical effect. Humorous songs, or those containing humorous elements, are not necessarily novelty songs. The term arose in Tin Pan Alley to describe one of the major divisions of popular music. The other two divisions...

 Dolly Varden (published Cleveland, 1872) which contains the lyrics: Have you seen my little girl? She doesn’t wear a bonnet/ She’s got a monstrous flip-flop hat with cherry ribbons on it.