It comes as no surprise that I like hats. I wear them year round, but it's especially fun to wear them in winter. With the approaching Polar Vortex 2, little brother of Polar Vortex, I will most likely be wearing a woolly hat indoors. It's good to have a proper cold winter. I've enjoyed Edna, my vintage poodle hat, named after my dear friend, Edna St. Vincent Millay.
Not many wear them in my neck of the woods, so I get pleasant looks of surprise when I show up around town in wild vintage hats. It's no fun to dress without accessories. In 1950s rural Indiana, a woman dared not show up to church without her best hat, pocketbook, and gloves. My favorite thing to do in church, besides eating Grandpa's butterscotch Lifesavers, was to look for Margaret Mabbit, the woman with the feathered hat and bright red lipstick. When we rose to sing the doxology, she looked like a lovely Sendakian parrot, happily singing on her perch.
“What the hell is that?" I laughed.
"It's my fox hat."
"Your fox hat?"
"Yeah, Pudge. My fox hat."
"Why are you wearing your fox hat?" I asked.
"Because no one can catch the motherfucking fox.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska
Another childhood memory for me too! I l always had a hat, and shoes for every outfit, and yes I wore little white gloves mostly, and always to church. Not just on Easter Sunday! I wear hats now as much as I can, and often times it's not such a pleasant look from strangers, but rather, really? I laugh, what do they know right!
ReplyDeleteThe little white gloves made me feel claustrophobic...
DeleteAfter washing my face, brushing my teeth, donning my PJs, I climbed into bed last night, still wearing the black knit cap I wear for power walks ... awakened this morning with the most outrageous 'hat hair' I've experienced in many a moon. Never again.
ReplyDeleteSometimes my hat hair is better...
DeleteMy foxy friend...you made me smile. PV2 is going to be a challenge for all of us. Take care over at WM. I gave my brother Tim and my cousin Craig (like a brother to me) boxes of Lifesavers at Christmas. They were replicas of the vintage Christmas boxes from days of yore, chock full of old familiar flavors. Sundays were about polished shoes and clip-on ties for us boys. Now I don't care much for polished shoes (properly waxed winter boots, on the other hand, are a must), and I tie my own ties on the rare occasion one is required. But I still love butterscotch hard candy! And hats...
ReplyDeleteI've considered taking up wearing ties...they, like hats, are too rare! It's been far too long since I've had a Lifesaver...
DeleteI wear hats (fedoras) and ties, as well. It's one of my favorite "looks"! Go for it. Hint: Salvation Army and thrift stores have scads of gorgeous ties for pennies on the dollar!
Deleteha! wait, should that be hat!? :) ~
ReplyDeleteI have lots of hats...and they all have names...
DeleteI am of the era of hat and matching accessories and deplore the modern day lack of style and grace.
ReplyDelete(Don't I sound pompous!) Dressing up is good for morale, living in a dressing gown or track pants is solo depressing.
I dress up solely for myself...
DeleteNone of my hats has a name, but just about everything else does. From my veg garden to my wood-fired cooker, the hens, and the fruit trees. No, I can't start naming hats as well!
ReplyDeleteYes you can...beginning with that sexy beret you always wear...
DeleteGaston?
DeleteThat reminds me of a Prince Charles joke. Charles turns up to a gig in an out-of-the-way village, wearing a hat made from a stuffed fox. When asked why, he said that he had told his mother (the Queen...) where he was going to go the previous day, and he heard her say, "Wear the fox hat".
ReplyDeleteI had a picture of Prince Charles taped by my college dorm room wall...giggle...he used to be cool...a long long time ago...
Deletecute post
ReplyDeleteI'm in the beret season...pulled down...tilted to the side...that Marlene look....red black purple...well I'm old enough to wear lots of purple!! What fun.
ReplyDeleteWith your sleek, dark hair, you can make a hat look good!
ReplyDeleteThere was one lady in my church as a teen (this would be in the 90s) who wore a hat every Sunday. She dressed in black, had a headful of very short, wispy white hair, and she would top this with a hat made of black feathers that wrapped around her hair. It took me a while to figure out the hat was not part of her hair, but it was very sophisticated.
I too see the merit in having explicit formal clothes that a lady would feel naked without. That way at least we know who is trying to be modest/formal and who isn't. But alas, those days are gone. I enjoy wearing hats, but when I do, I always feel that I'm making an exhibition of myself. Rather like going bareheaded would have done 200 years ago.
It really is all about accessories...
DeleteWonderful post and it ends with a laugh.
ReplyDeleteI love hats and in the UK, wore them all the time especially in the winter when my favourite was what I called my Paddington Bear Hat. It was large, black and velvet. I also love berets.
ReplyDeleteI have a classic black wool beret that is my old standby...
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