We would go to Bloomingdale's and Saks and try on all the hats in the hat department until the sales people threw us out.
I have always loved hats. When I was a senior in high school, I used to go into Manhattan on the weekends to visit my friend Amy, and we would go to Bloomingdale’s and Saks and try on all the hats in the hat department until the sales people threw us out. It was so much fun! If only cell phones with cameras had existed then, we would have taken hundreds of pictures of ourselves in hats we loved but had no intention of buying. Instead I can only dream about how wonderful we looked in them.
I never did come across a leopard-skin pillbox hat. If I had, I probably would have bought it because of the Bob Dylan song. Audrey Hepburn wore one in the movie Charade, which came out in 1963, as shown in the featured image. Dylan wrote his song in 1965, but I’m sure it wasn’t about Audrey, she wasn’t his type. Supposedly it was about Edie Sedgwick, who was part of Andy Warhol’s crowd.
In my twenties and thirties I bought quite a few hats, although not as many as I would have liked. I have a fairly large head, and that combined with all my curly hair means that it is difficult to find a hat that is big enough to fit. But when I did find one that fit, I bought it. For some reason I haven’t had as many hat opportunities in the last few decades.
Here’s my all-time favorite hat, that I wore frequently in the ’80s, and occasionally later on. It was a much deeper blue then – when I pulled it out of the closet today to take this photograph, I was dismayed to see how faded it has gotten. I had a navy blue and white dress that I wore with it to several afternoon weddings and garden parties, and I always got lots of compliments.
When I got married in 1983, I chose to wear a hat with veiling on it instead of a traditional veil. I thought this was a very practical idea because after the wedding I could take the veiling off and have a hat that would be wearable on many occasions. Great idea in theory, but I never wore it again. I’m pretty sure I still have it somewhere, but I couldn’t find it while writing this story, so here are pictures from my wedding album of me in the hat, front and back.
From the sublime to the (perhaps) ridiculous, here’s a picture of me in Israel wearing a hat for protection from the hot Mediterranean sun. I like this style of “bucket hat” much better than a baseball cap, both in terms of how it looks and how it feels on my head. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see that the hat says “Donner Party Hike” on the front. They were given to all participants on a hike with that name in the Sierra Nevada mountains. (There was a barbecue after the hike, and if you know the story of the Donner Party, you can imagine the jokes that were circulating.)
This picture is from the time I went to see a friend of my nephew’s perform in an Abba cover band, and she let me wear the hat from her costume after the show. Unfortunately, I had to give it back.
A fascinator – that counts as a hat, right? This was part of the costume for a pops choir that I sang in one year. I still have the fascinator, but wonder if I will ever have another appropriate event to wear it to. It has the advantage of working with every hairstyle and on any size head, but I would probably be more likely to wear it if I lived in England.
This is one of the hats they were giving away at Whittier College one year when I went to visit Molly there for Homecoming/Family Weekend. It would have been more useful if the brim were bigger, but it looked cute, so I wore it for the day on campus, then had to figure out how to bring it home on the plane without squashing it.
And finally, who could forget the pussy hats that we all knitted to march in protest against a certain former President, who shall remain nameless! Hope we don’t need them any more!
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Suzy
Loved the pictures of you in your hats.
Thanks, Jeff.
Great hat recollections/collection, Suzy. Your wedding hat/veil combination is stunning (you made a lovely bride). Like you, for outdoor stuff, I like a wide-brimmed hat, so really appreciate your “Donner Party” hat (and I get the joke). I think I’d like a hat like that. When I attended my cousin’s wedding outside of London 5 1/2 years ago, the invitation said “hats optional”. Getting something appropriate that would also pack easily was beyond me, so I skipped it, but almost everyone wore a hat or fascinator, and I gave a reading at the altar, so felt sort of under-dressed. Wish I had given that fashion item more thought.
Like you, I adored Audrey Hepburn’s style (your Featured photo is SO chic…we watched Charade again fairly recently). I reference her in my story too. Great minds…right?
Thanks, Betsy. Seems like a fascinator is the perfect solution to the packing problem; that’s what you should have had for your cousin’s wedding.
As you know, I love Audrey Hepburn so much I named my daughter after her, so couldn’t resist using that photo for my story. Can’t wait to see what you said about her in your story.
Wow Suzy, I love your story and all the photos of you in your memorable hats, and your bridal hat is absolutely beautiful, and you too!
As for your pussy hat, when you wake up on the west coast and read my Hats story, you’ll see I have the antidote!
Can’t wait to read about the antidote, Dana!
I am now, finally beginning to get it about women and their love of hats. As you illustrate, they (the hats, I mean — though the women, too) have infinite variety. Plus, not insignificantly, you truly look great in all of these, Suzy.
Indeed (and not that I was asked), I find it hard to choose a favorite among these. Perhaps the wedding hat, which looks so much more stylish than a simple veil; I could almost imagine you arriving to your wedding astride a white horse. And I love the pussy hat given its political connotations and, as you note, the hope it will never be needed again.
You also look great in the “Donner Party Hike” hat; definitely cooler (in every sense) than a baseball cap. Plus it reminds me of an old pal of mine who used to always make dinner reservations under the name “the Donner party.” Only a few restaurants seemed to get the joke.
Finally, there is the fascinator, which I first learned about just three years ago when my wife decided to throw a (very early morning) tea party for her daughter and granddaughters and a dear Anglophile friend to watch Meghan and Harry’s wedding. She though fascinators would be just the thing for all the ladies to wear. I was clueless until she explained them and then I typed the word in on an Amazon search and voila — fascinators galore! Since then, I have been particularly attuned to them, as when watching regal events in “The Crown.” But now, like you, my wife has a bunch of fascinators sitting in the closet and no occasion to wear them. I may suggest the Super Bowl.
Oh, I wish I had ridden a white horse to my wedding! It was in Old Sacramento, which has a Gold Rush vibe, so there are even hitching posts for the horses. Of course I would have had to ride side saddle in my long white gown. But what a picture that would have made for the album! I should have consulted you at the time!
In fact, I had envisioned you riding that horse side saddle. Isn’t that how all the fair maidens rode?
PS LOVE the fascinator!
When I posted that picture on facebook at the time of my choir’s performance, somebody commented that I looked like I had a bird nesting on my head!
Great story, Suzy. I love all of the photos of your hat collection. What will we ever do with our pussy hats?
Thanks, Laurie. Last winter I went to a friend’s cabin in the mountains and went snowshoeing, and wore my pussy hat for warmth. It was great in the snow, but I certainly hope I never need it again for political reasons.
Love your hats, and the wedding hat was wonderful. You have great hair too. The only problem I have with hats is that my hair takes on the shape of the hat and looks hideous if I have to take the hat off.
Hat hair is probably a universal problem. After my wedding, when I changed into my going-away outfit (we flew down to LA and spent our wedding night on the Queen Mary), I think I just had smushed hair, although I should have had another hat.
Not everyone gets hat hair. I used to go skiing with a woman who would take off her ski hat, shake her head and her hair would look fabulous. I looked like a drowned rat in comparison. But she hated her hair because it wouldn’t curl. She complained that it wouldn’t even bend. Needless to say, I was envious.
You’re right, Cynthia, some people have that annoyingly perfect hair that just shakes out when they take their hats off. And of course they hate their hair anyway.
Cool hats, all, Suzy. The wedding hat was such an awesome, original idea! Wonder why I hadn’t thought of it? We are indeed a fashionable, hat-loving bunch!
Yes we are, Marian. I’m surprised you didn’t think of a wedding hat, being such a hat-lover yourself.
What a terrific collection of hats, Suzy! You look wonderful in all of them, especially your so-called “ridiculous” Israel hat. I also love your fascinator. I love fascinators in general, especially the British kind, because they often look as if a bird had smashed into the side of the wearer’s head. Yours looks much more decorous. Fascinating!
Thanks, Charlie. As I commented to Dana, when I posted the fascinator pic on fb, somebody did say it looked like a bird had smashed into my head. It wasn’t you, was it?
A superb melange of imagery and description. I guess the young Audrey Hepburn could have worn anything at all and made it look amazing! But you look fetching yourself in several of those headgear choices.
Thanks, Dale. I’ll take “fetching.”
I love thinking of you trying on hats with Amy until they threw you out of the store! And I love your wedding hat, but what is it about wedding (and pregnancy) garb that we imagine we’ll wear again but never do even though we still love them? Your fascinator is like a little poem…in fact, now that I think about it, I once heard the fascinator referred to as the haiku of hats, and that it is!
Sweet comment, Barb. Glad to know I’m not the only one who never wore something again even though I loved it.
Loved this and all the pictures, Suzy! I also love to try on every hat (and that big flowered one was in the gift shop at Filoli right before the Derby). Especially liked the wedding hat with veil–lovely and unique. I ran across my pussy hat the other day and wondered if I would indeed ever wear it again! This piece reminded me that I wore a big black hat as part of my “going away” outfit. I have a picture of me wearing it on a boat on my honeymoon. At only 21, I may have been trying to “look older” with that hat… This was a fun prompt with so many great photos and memories.
Risa, I suspected that Derby hat was one you were trying on in a store! I would love to see the picture of you in your “going away” hat. I don’t think there’s any way to put it in these comments, so if you don’t want to add it to your own story, can you just email it to me?