Jun 21, 2007

In praise of hats

ROYAL Ascot 1
Photograph: Timothy Ockenden/PA


I get nostalgic for the days when women wore hats as a matter of course, even though I never lived in that era.

But my nostalgia is fed by watching old movies. In Mrs. Miniver, Greer Garson's final indulgence before the war was a silly hat that she had been pining for for weeks. And in The Bishop's Wife, Loretta Young desperately wants a certain hat for Christmas.

loretta_portrait


Rosalind Russell was a great one for hats. I'd say Roz's hats were an externsion of her character as the gossipy socialite Sylvia in The Women.

cukor_women


And as the flamboyant Auntie Mame.

mame



Hats added drama to everyday clothes. They offered a way for a woman to get noticed without flashing her boobs or showing her butt crack. Nowadays the only women who wear hats regularly are the Queen of England and black ladies who go to church.

More pictures of ladies in hats at Royal Ascot.

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