The Way I Wear My Hat

I sat with my hats today, trying to decide their homes. If you hang your hats on a wall, there’s joy in seeing their style & grace: the fabrics, feathers, buttons & bows! But also - some hats attract so much dust that when you take them off the hook to wear to the Easter Parade, they make you sneeze & cough.

Hmmm..what about hat boxes? I have a few and they offer good protection but I'm apt to forget their contents altogether.

The hat in the photo below won’t fit into any box, so it's on my shelf. The chair & table in the shot were not so lucky: they've disappeared along with the Tom Jones Steakhouse (Toronto), where they resided, replaced with some towering hunk of steel and glass.

My straw hats are stacked on the same shelf as the above hat; straw (or similar) is easier to dust than felt or tulle.

The venetian-blind-slashed topper, below, could be in a film noir. After all, not all noirs take place in the dark. Out of the Past broke that mold when they shot much of it in the searing sunlight of Mexico, both with & without shadows.

A dear friend advised me not to get rid of any of my hats due to storage problems but rather to get even more hats! I love this advice. It comes from a true original, sartorially-and artistically-speaking, whom I've known since high school: Randy Raine-Reusch.

Randy also suggested I get a hat tree. What? You mean there's a tree that grows hats? Someone get me one!

Speaking of film noir, my partner and I looked everywhere for a good fedora. We finally came across one at Club Monaco. I've a few vintage fedoras but they're stiff, not bendy and crushable like Sterling Hayden’s in Crime Wave. The CM one is not quite Hayden's but it's as close as we could get -

On a road trip we came upon Sweet Trash, a vintage clothing store in Elora, Ontario. My partner bought me this 40s frock there and I wore it out of the store because it went so well with my travelling hat and flip-flops.

This is our beloved dog, Nixie, putting up with me celebrating the Queen’s birthday - or some such royal business - a few years ago:

My fascinator was a gift from my sister Terri. It’s wonderful when someone knows you so well that they see a thing and understand that it has to be yours. And then you get a brown-paper package in the mail and open it to reveal that fascinating something with your name all over it. I love gifts of all kinds but ones from a big sister who’s known you since you were born are special.

My other big sister (she's just a year older than me) gave me my first ever elegant hat. It was my 20th birthday, and she aced it with her gift: all the mystery of Garbo and the sex appeal of Deitrich wrapped into one black hat with vintage vibes and a single pheasant feather. Hat heaven.

When we were kids, my dad brought home a bunch of old hats that didn't sell at the Rotary Club rummage sale. Every spring I'd decorate one to make an Easter bonnet. I used whatever I could find (there were no $ stores back then): scavenged bits of lace, fabric scraps, flowers from the garden, feathers. My biggest thrill was if I still had a fluffy little chick from a previous Easter, bonus points if I had materials to make a nest for it - birds nesting on a hat are the best. My grown up Easter bonnet (above) needs a chick or two.

We saw this sweet chapeau in a shop in Paris, perfect for a promenade along the Champ Elysees, but we left it in its dust-free window:

Here I am at TO's Sugar Beach in my panama hat and espadrilles. The latter were gifted to me by another who knows me well, a very good friend. Sugar Beach is an urban park located just across from the Redpath Sugar Refinery. I love it there.

I have no idea where I got the winter hat pictured below or where it is now but it kept me warm in NYC. Here I am on 5th Avenue, hardly the "grandest lady in the Easter Parade" (right venue, wrong season) but nevertheless I was (and still am) enchanted by the hustle and bustle of the big city. My pink pashmina had just been purchased from a street vendor.

My preferred topper for cold weather is a toque, this one was knitted by my eldest daughter:

I have many more hats! Maybe there'll be a Part Two. Or maybe you'd enjoy reading about my fascination with shoes. If so, just click on the photo below:

Thanks for reading! These stunning photos are by Aaron Schwartz.