I'm pretty sure the shtreimel hat thingies are derived from the headgear of the 18th-century Polish and Russian nobility.
--- andie nachgeborenen
<andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> The black hats, peyes (for men), wigs (for married
> women), long dresses, etc., are the traditional
> dress of pre-Holocaust European Jewry; they would
> not have marked someone as Chassid in Poland in in
> 1930. They are not a religious requirement, I mean
> the old-style Polish dress. The peyes, some head
> covering, female modest dress, are religious
> requirements. But there's no divine basis for
> telling Chassidim to dress like Polish Jewish from
> 1930 or 1880. It's just tradition.
>