If the Hat Fits…
Headdress by Stephen Jones
You should only wear a hat on the days you’re in love with yourself. If you wear a hat on a day that you aren’t, the hat will become bigger than you, and it will wear you instead of the other way around.
Sometimes I wear a hat around my house when I’m working in the little factory or vacuuming or drinking a cup of coffee. It makes me feel spirited, brave, eccentric, mysterious. Often though, I take the hat off when I go out the door because I know on that particular day, the hat will wear me and people will stare and I won’t be able to take the heat. This is especially true on the Cape where I live, since most people dress for comfort and sartorial statements issue too much of a proclamation.
A couple of days ago in a little Provincetown shop, I bought a beautiful hat and even though it’s wool, I wore it all day and felt radiant and quite at home with myself. This confidence was no doubt attributable to the prior three days spent in Manhattan, observing New York in full summer regalia: floaty trapeze dresses worn with black socks and short boots; long black dresses with sliced wispy skirts and thick platform shoes; big baggy trousers with tight muscle-y tops; and lively sneakers all over the place.
It was also a delight to visit the Metropolitan’s Costume Institute’s exhibition: “China: Through the Looking Glass,” a full-scale, multi-media spectacle showing the strong influence of China on Western fashion. All the headdresses on the splendid mannequins were created by Stephen Jones, a designer who knows a thing or two about imagination and probably wears a hat every day.
Such sights are good for my soul. I come home refreshed and reconfigured, ready to mix a pair of stylish black sneakers with Charlie Chaplin pants; ready to try a shimmering platter of freshly dug littleneck clams on a summer night; ready to take down the tattered lace curtains and put up valances of crumpled moving paper; ready to sit in the dusky twilight and count fireflies; ready to hang an old door out in the Italian courtyard; and quite ready to wear a spunky little hat with all systems go, all the quite necessary aplomb.