La modisteria

In the Paris of the early 1880s the hat trade was one of the few skilled crafts a woman could rise in, and Degas kept coming back to the workrooms where the hats were made. This is the largest of those pictures. A young woman leans over a table, both hands busy pinning a wide-brimmed hat into shape, a pin held in her mouth the way any working milliner would hold it. Look at what she is wearing though. The green wool dress and the long gloves are exactly what a wealthy customer trying on hats might wear, not what you would expect on a shopgirl. That confusion is the point. In those years a good milliner could dress and carry herself well enough to be mistaken for her own clients, and Degas leaves you unsure which side of the counter she belongs to. He worked the pose out slowly, in drawings and pastels, shifting her outfit until it landed on that ambiguity. The finished hats crowd the front of the canvas in cream, orange and aqua, the newest colours for spring around 1880, so close you feel you could reach past her and pick one up.