Opera hat which means hat, and "claque", which means "tap" or "click". The "chapeau claque" is thus a hat that folds with a click, and unfolds likewise. In English the hat model is usually referred to as a "collapsible top-hat", "gibus" or more often "opera hat"- The construction may originally have been inspired by an historical hat model called "chapeau bras" ("arm hat"), made as bicorne or tricorne to be carried folded under the arm On May 5, 1812, a London hatter called Thomas Francis Dollman patented a design for "an elastic round hat" supported by ribs and springs. His patent was
Femme au Chapeau (lower right). The work—executed in a style consistent with other works by Metzinger created between 1905 and 1907, such as "Two Nudes in an Exotic Landscape"—is a portrait of an elegant women gazing self-assuredly directly at the spectator, wearing a fashionable wide-brimmed hat with a large green-bleu bow tied in a simple knot. Metzinger's use of color in "Femme au Chapeau" is very closely related to the works of artist directly in his entourage known as the Fauves; quasi-pure greens, blues and violets, juxtaposed in groups far from randomly. However, the composition contains a variety of geometrized shapes, including the