Hats are back. Last month, big as life, the New York Times said so.
All right--they waffled a tad, and teetered a bit, by allowing the popularity of hats was no where near what it had been in the past, and probably never would be again. But nonetheless, the article averred, "there clearly has been a resurgence."
The article went on to describe how items like candy colored bowlers had swept out of Sonia Rykiel's shop. I had to pause here and adjust what I know and love about Sonia Rykiel's fashion design with pink and cherry bowlers.
The article closed with advice as to how to carry off wearing a hat. "Make it your own," a designer of hats said--
Puhleez. Of course. What else is one to do in order to make a hat their own.
I used to wear hats. To Mass every Sunday when I was growing up, back in the days when if you appeared at the church door sans hat, a piece of Kleenex bobby pinned to your head sufficed.
I loved my Sunday hats. My mother wore hats. My little sisters wore hats.
We had big, beautiful hat boxes on the closet shelves, where now flat folded sweaters sit. I don't remember where the sweaters sat when the hat boxes reigned. I remember how elegant and beribboned those hat boxes were though.
I'd love to wear hats again. But it is work to wear a hat--
Hats blow off in the wind. Hats blow off in the slightest breeze. Hats blow off standing still.
Most importantly, hats are ruinous to the hair. So one must be committed to keeping the thing on all evening.
It's hard to kiss someone while wearing a hat. So he sweeps it off, in a moment of reckless passion, and is confronted by your hair.
I have it on the best authority that he doesn't give a damn about the state of your hair at this moment. But it is difficult for the hat wearer to keep on track at that moment. Because, the kiss finished, he draws away, looking down at you with...all kinds of beautiful and wordless emotion.
You however, are desperately trying to check the state of your hair in the reflection of his eyes.
He doesn't know this, and interprets the intense stare as meaning his passion is returned. He moves in for step two.
This may be true love, when even though you have ascertained your hair is as flat as roads in Kansas, you toss beauty to the wind, and sink into step two with him.
Finally, hats are a must indoors on cold winter days.