“These images are captivating visual vignettes. We may not know who the subjects are, but the postcards offer us a glimpse of their interests, their time, and their world. Tom Phillips’s exceptional collection gives us a fascinating chance to retrieve something of these lives.”

Sandy Nairne, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London

“Picture postcards from a century ago capture unique moments in time and place and are a wonderful social history record. Tom Phillips is adept at seeking out and choosing amazingly evocative postcard images.”

Brian Lund, editor, Picture Postcard Monthly

“The heyday of the milliner’s art, like that of the picture postcard, is long past, but Tom Phillips’s Women and Hats summons up a fond nostalgia for both. The book’s 200 photographs, taken between 1900 and 1950, portray middle-class British women who stepped into High Street studios to purchase penny-a-print photographic postcards of themselves. Most of the women remain unidentified, but the messages they wrote bring a few to fleeting life, including Connie Beldig, who in 1910 wrote from Manchester: ‘Do you recognise me now, as it is so long since you saw me, but this isn’t a very good photo.’ It is, however, a very impressive hat.:”

Wall Street Journal