“Are you going to wear that?” my husband asked as I tried on the flowered hat I had just scored from an estate sale.

“…Yes?” I wanted to be firm, but the words came out a bit uncertainly.  I have worn all sorts of “unusual” vintage hats since this project began, though typically the most outlandish ones I didn’t choose myself but was given or otherwise acquired indirectly. This big flowered hat came from an estate sale lot that had four hats. Two of them really interested me (more about them in later posts). The other two…well, I’ll just say they weren’t really to my taste. This one seemed twice as big on my head as it had appeared in the online picture.

I look at a lot of estate sales online, but rarely do they contain hats, and if they do, they are usually modern, made-in-China sun hats that do not interest me. But this estate had FIFTEEN lots of vintage hats. If only one had been available, I would have bid on it. But with this many to choose from, I had to be selective. After all, I would have to find a way to store all the hats I got. I finally decided to bid on two of the lots.

These estate sale auctions are tricky for me. Often the goods are grouped into lots, but I only want some of the items in a given lot. And since I can’t examine the goods in person, I have to pore over the often limited pictures online. Now, if I were a dealer, it wouldn’t matter. I would be planning to make a profit on all the items. Even a hat that is strange or in poor condition will sell if priced right. But for me, if a hat isn't wearable or isn't of interest to me, I would prefer not to spend money on it.
​
So when bidding on the two lots, I had to figure out, not what the whole grouping of hats was worth objectively, as a dealer would, but what they were worth to ME. Here is the first lot I decided to bid on:

As you can see, any lot of hats is a mixed bag. That orange feathered hat, for example, is simply frightening--I'd feel like a Muppet in it. I don’t need a plain white felt boater, or a small rose whimsy. Upon closer examination, the blue feathered hat had some condition issues. (I have a hat of similar materials, in white, and I knew to look for signs that whatever the milliner used to affix and sculpt the feathers was discoloring, and sure enough, it was). So bidding on this lot came down to two hats: the brown-and-white, black-checked straw, and the white saucer hat. The straw hat seemed a little misshapen, and might require steaming to put to rights, but it was a very unusual hat, which attracted me. 

However the one I really wanted was the white saucer (or mushroom or platter) hat.  I have a real fondness for that shape, which is emblematic of the fifties and early sixties (Dior introduced one in his famous New Look collection late in the 1940s, and the shape remained popular for more than a decade). I knew the hat would be valuable for a reseller—they could probably list it for the $50.00 range, depending on condition.​

I guess I wore this hat as more of an “Late Summer” hat. It WAS a little past season. When I turned up wearing it in church, people said things like “You look like you’re ready for Easter,” and “You look like you should be in a wedding.” I just smiled and decided that if the roses were still blooming in front of the church (where my husband took the pictures for this blog) I could wear a rose hat, even in October. 

I recently took a trip to New Orleans, a place I had wanted to visit for many years. I had been hearing songs, reading books, and seeing movies about the city my whole life. And when I was approaching a milestone birthday, I decided to fulfil the dream and go. 

One of the books I bought for travel planning was called New Orleans Bucket List. Instead of offering info on hotels and restaurants, this book simply lists things to do in the city, ranging from the mainstream to the quirky. I opened it to a random page and landed on number 105, "Try on big hats." Color me excited! It recommended checking out a store called Fleur de Paris in the French Quarter, calling it "the largest millinery in North America."  

I instantly added a visit to this shop (very near our hotel) to our must-see list. In preparation, I followed the shop's Instagram page, where they post pictures of their beautiful hats and clothing. 

Though my specialty is vintage hats that are 50-60 years old, I do follow a few modern hatmakers, so I know their handcrafted wares are priced to reflect the many hours of skilled work and the costly materials that go into high-end hats. I wasn't sure I would be willing to spend the money for one of Fleur de Paris' unique creations.  To get a feel for the prices, I looked them up on resale sites, and sure enough, even secondhand many of their hats fetched prices beyond what I usually paid. The hats are works of art, many quite large and bedecked with flowers and feathers--true Kentucky Derby hats.

​I went to the shop prepared to enjoy browsing but hoping I would find a hat I could take home, maybe a small, portable fascinator like I got in Bath England. 

We went to the store on a Thursday afternoon that was just clearing after an extremely rainy morning.  We were the only customers in the store. I was too embarrassed to revel in trying on every hat in the place, especially once I confirmed that many of the hats were priced beyond what I was comfortable paying, complicated creations more suited to a special occasion than a regular Sunday church service. I loved their hats, but I couldn't justify spending hundreds of dollars on a hat that I wouldn't get to wear that often, no matter how fabulous.

Still, I enjoyed puttering around, looking at the various shapes and decorations. Because the store is famous for making custom hats, they had a long case filled with piles of ribbons and a wall full of little drawers with other trimmings. Notice how they have library ladders to reach the top shelves! I wished I could explore them all.  

Since the Fleur de Paris milliners are famous makers of Kentucky Derby hats, the store did stock some huge, amazing creations. However, I know from wearing the biggest hat in my collection that those hats aren't for me. I did love a lot of their smaller hats, especially those with unique, whimsical shapes you don't see often--asymmetrical top hats, sleek feathered models like updated Robin Hood hats. And they were trimmed with such unusual ribbons and other decorations! The whole store was a feast! 

As I was regretfully moving towards the door emptyhanded, I spied a straw hat with a pink, white, and brown striped ribbon on a rack full of sun hats. "It's the hat!" I thought. When I had started following the store on Instagram, I had seen this hat in their Instagram posts and had immediately felt drawn to it. I tried it on. It looked great and was in my price range. Compared to their other hats, it was simple. However, I could imagine wearing it on many occasions, perhaps taking over some of the duties of the aging MVP Hat. 

​I immediately bought it.

Kidding! Instead, I said I would think about it and left, mulling it over. I am trying to buy fewer hats. Did I need this one? How would I get it home? Would I have to wear it on the plane?  I did more shopping, including visits to two more hat stores. At each I saw pretty (and relatively reasonable) hats, but there was a sameness to them--they seemed to come from factories somewhere, instead of being uniquely trimmed by a skilled milliner.

And...it was my birthday. 

We returned to Fleur de Paris, and as soon as we walked in, the shopkeeper said, "You came back for the hat." I happily agreed. 

When she asked if I wanted to take it or ship it, she must have seen how torn I was. She suggested that I wear it for the rest of my trip and drop it back at the shop for shipping. "We do it all the time," she said.

My husband got the hat for me as a gift, and I wore it out of the store. Because I didn't want it to be rained on, I didn't wear it constantly the rest of the trip, but I did wear it cruising down the Mississippi on a paddlewheel boat (number 100 on the book's bucket list) later in the week. 

The afternoon before we left, we went back to the store to give them the hat to mail. Since it was Saturday, many shoppers were browsing. When we handed my hat to the (different) clerk for shipping, he found our receipt among several others for hats waiting to be mailed. 

As I watched him carry my hat to the back room, I noticed a lady trying on a large hat with the assistance of a milliner. They were discussing trims for a special occasion hat. The customer was probably getting one of the custom hats the shop is famous for. I saw some of those hats for sale on the secondhand market. Some of them originally cost over a thousand dollars. Several of those secondhand hats were described as "never worn." The owners came to New Orleans and bought a dream hat for an occasion they hoped would materialize that never did. 

I used to be like them, keeping most of my hats in the closet, unworn, until I decided to do this Hat Project. Now I wear at least one hat a week, and often more. No hats languish sadly in boxes. If I'd gotten one of those custom hats, I would certainly have worn it, if only once. Fortunately for me, my favorite hat in the store was one I could enjoy wearing without waiting for a special occasion, except the special occasion of visiting a city I had always longed to see.

One might think from the way this blog is structured that I write a post about a hat and never wear the hat again. It is true for a few hats, but I continue to wear most hats after they have been "introduced." Some are in quite heavy rotation. For example, I have continued to carry and wear this flat-packing ribbon hat I bought in Prague in 2006 on many subsequent trips. Most recently, I wore it in New Orleans as I toured around in the late May heat. 

Here I am in front of a pretty house in the Garden District:

And in front of a railroad exhibit at the visitor's center

I also took it to Spain with me in 2023. Here I am in front of some wildflowers in San Sebastian.

And in a selfie in Zaragoza. 

I bought a new hat in New Orleans (more about that later), and when I dropped it off to be shipped home, I carried this blue hat stuffed in my purse so I could put it on when I left the store.

This hat was a cheap tourist hat, but it has been on so many journeys with me that I am quite attached to it. Though it's a bucket hat without much intrinsic shape, by rolling the brim and tilting it, I add a little style to my summer travels. 

Sometimes I find something I really like—a dress, a sofa, a table —and it’s only after I’ve bought it that I’ll realize why I like it: it reminds me of something from my past. Thus I’ve ended up with a sofa the same blue as one my grandmother had, a shirt the same coral of an evening dress my mother had, and an kitchen table that is reminiscent of one my grandmother painted.

So when my friend Pat gave me this hat, I instantly loved it. It was only later that I realized it reminded me of a dress I’d had a as a little girl (maybe five years old?), that was navy or black with white daisies on it. I loved that dress so much that I remember spilling something on it and being so upset that my father instantly cleaned it with the nearest thing to hand—shampoo.
​
Having acquired the hat, I knew immediately why I liked this daisy shirt when I saw it online. It spoke to me of the long-gone dress the same way the hat did. Why not put them together?

Hats are lovely to look at. Many are one-of-a-kind handmade works of art, so it's no surprise that people want to display them. The internet is bursting with articles in which people extol the beauty of arraying your hats on a wall instead of art. 

For me, though, there's a problem: hats fade.  I have seen too many hats in antique and thrift stores that have that washed-out, uneven look of a hat exposed to too much sunshine.

I even own a few.  The Orange Ribbon and Cello Straw Beret, which was purchased online, arrived with the band a deeper orange than the top, as if it had been hung on the wall--the outward-facing top faded, while the band, curled under and protected from the sun, did not.  And the once green hat a friend got for free at a garage sale has faded so much it appears white, except for the green veil, which was obviously less prone to fading. 

​Mind you, I am not perfect. I have so many hats I don't have room to store all of them boxed up. So I hang some on some hooks behind the door in the spare bedroom.  Most of these hats are modern hats, not particularly rare or valuable, so I feel less bad about exposing them to the limited amount of light that makes it back there. But, as you can see, the jumble of hats is a far cry from the artful displays on Pinterest. 

Longtime blog readers will recognize most of these hats.  There is only one up there that has not been featured in The Hat Project--maybe I'll write that hat's story one of these days.

Another way I display hats is on the hat stand I own. The stand operates as a staging area. I often place the next hat I'm planning to wear there for easy access. Hats sit on the stand for other reasons too. For example, the giant black hat is so big it doesn't fit in even my largest hat box and spent several weeks on the hat stand while I tried to decide what to do with it (it ended up in big plastic bag on a closet shelf).

​Here's how the stand looks right now:

Turbo fans of this blog might notice that I have never worn this hat.  It was in a load of hats from a friend, and though I like the shape, it has some condition issues. I have to decide whether to wear it as-is, try to address the problems, or give up on it and pass it along. 

Hats on the stand are exposed to some sunlight, but the hat stand is always a temporary destination. 

So, what prompted this blog?  After all my protestations, I bought a vintage hat simply to display. And worse, it's not even indoors, but outdoors where it will be prey to sun, wind, and dirt. I know I am basically choosing to destroy this old hat that has survived for decades. But the hat was not in pristine condition and was perfect for what I wanted.

A couple of years ago, I got the idea that I would like to use a wire dress form in my yard. I'd seen a few in antique stores and, the same way I made planters from a bird cage and a typewriter, I thought I could make a succulent display on a wire dress form. Then I came to my senses. I have a birdcage flower planter because the deer eat EVERYTHING. To them, succulents are...succulent. 

But I could use silk flowers So, I kept my eyes peeled in antique stores until I found what I was looking for about two years ago (the picture is from the day I brought it home).

My vision was to cover it in yellow and white daisies, but the wire itself was so cute, I only ended up putting on flower accents.  Instead of the yard, I put it on the porch. And for the finishing touch, I ordered a straw hat to decorate and put on top.

Only problem was, my dress form is child-sized, making the cheap straw hat I bought way too big.  Ever since then, I have been on the lookout for a child's hat to complete the dress form that sits on my porch.  And a few days ago, on one of my walks, I spied a small hat through an antique store window.  I went inside and tried it on to make sure that yes, it was a child's hat and not an adult's.  It is made of rows of lace and topped with artificial flowers.

The lace has yellowed quite a bit, the ribbons are not pristine, and the hat is slightly misshapen. Given all that, and its cheap ($13.00) price, I thought I could put it on my form.  

​It's not like me to sacrifice an old hat, but I'm doing it, and enjoying the results this spring.​

​“The sun is shining, the grass is green, the orange and palm trees sway…”
 
The song “White Christmas” begins with the singer describing Christmas in Southern California—and wishing for the snowy weather of their Christmases past. And though I have always lived in California, I have usually spent the holidays in the northern part, which is, if not cold, cooler. You don’t see snow, but there is usually a nip in the air.
 
But this year I am in Southern California for the holiday. It’s nearly 70 degrees and brightly sunny on December the 24th. And though I am not, as the song says, “longing to be up North,” since I am with family, I am finding the holiday weather a bit of a novelty. I didn’t even bother to bring my fancy Christmas coat with its faux fur trim, which I typically wear on Christmas Eve. (I am wearing it with the gray Parkhurst hat in an early Hat Project post).

However, I do like the warm weather and the chance to wear my newest holiday fascinator, the sparkly poinsettia. No need for the fuzzy red beret that I often wear Christmas Eve.  My ears are warm enough!
 
I originally bought this fascinator with a headband (similar to my other holiday fascinator The Christmas Tree Fascinator). However, the band provided by the Etsy maker pinched a bit, so the proprietor was kind enough to replace it with a clip. Does the poinsettia still qualify as a hat? Well, Ascot requires hats to be four or more inches, and the flower is nearly five, so I’m counting it!
 
I got this poinsettia because I wanted a festive hat that was less goofy than the Christmas tree, something I could wear to church and even in concert without feeling too kitschy. I wore this poinsettia to both of those this holiday season.
 
In the spirit of Christmas in Southern California, I took the first picture in front of an orange tree. Also, as bonus, here is a picture of the poinsettia hat and my poinsettia necklace (really a pin on a ribbon) while I'm posing with an actual poinsettia. It’s warm enough here that poinsettias grow in the ground and bloom naturally in December. That seems very Christmas-y to me.

​As the song says, “May your days be merry and bright” this holiday season and into the new year. 

I buy very few hats these days. As my collection has started to spill out of my closet space (I still don’t have a box big enough for the giant black hat, and other boxes are near capacity) I have concentrated on hats that fill a hole in my collection. I don’t need any more small black hats, though I love them.
 
I only had one orange hat, the Orange Ribbon and Cello Straw Beret. I had picked it out online, and my husband bought it for me for Christmas. But as sometimes happens when buying online, the hat had some issues that weren’t disclosed. It had obviously been displayed at one time and was faded in some areas. The weave had stretched out over time. And, finally, it had a musty odor. I didn’t notice the odor at first and wore the hat on the day we took the pictures. But the next time I went to wear it, after it had been confined in a small box for a few months, the smell was very noticeable.
 
Hats are delicate. Some can be steamed and even reshaped, but others cannot be because of their materials. I took a small chance and washed the beret. However, even washing it did not get rid of the smell. Given its fading, I decided to let that hat go and start looking for another orange hat.
 
I had my eye on this satin orange hat on Etsy for a while. Vintage orange hats are relatively rare; the color orange goes in and out of style (unlike, for example, black and white). Fewer orange hats exist, especially from the fifties and early sixties. I had bought the dress a year or so ago and was dying to get an orange hat to match. It’s a smashing combo, and though not completely flawless, the hat is odor free and looks as if has seldom been worn.
 
This kind of hat is sometimes called a half hat, and it’s easy to see why-- it doesn’t cover the whole head. This one has three sections, the center pleated one and two others on the front and back that provide a bit of a halo and allow for a peek-a-boo look at my blue hair!

I’m guessing this hat dates from the mid-fifties. Take a look at this hat that Queen Elizabeth II wore in 1954. Notice the side pom pom that is similar to my orange satin hat’s flower. But the rest of the shape is what is known as an eggshell shape (also easy to see why). I only have one eggshell hat, and I felt like an idiot when I wore it! But the queen always wore her hats with panache.

As I wrote in my last post a few months ago, I finally did something I’d wanted to do for a while and dyed my hair blue. I love the color, but it does have an impact on the look of my hats. As I wrote last time, some simply become more startling from the extra contrast. Others, however, look better or worse, depending on the color.
 
Better
This brown hat looks better with the blue hair. When I wear brown hats, such as this one or the brown tweed pillbox, the hat color blends in with my hair color so that you don’t really see the hat well. But with the blue, the brown hat pops in a new way.

In addition, as you will see later, a small black hat can also benefit from the greater contrast. 

Worse
The hats that become problematic are the colorful ones. For example, this blue hat looks a bit greyish next to the bright blue hair.  In fact, all my blue hats are blueish grays, so none of them looks that great with the bright dyed hair. 

​The picture doesn’t quite reflect the situation, but this green feathered hat looks more olive when contrasted with the blue. 

And the blue hair with a red hat is pretty startling. The only way to pull it all together is with the perfect outfit!  This combo wouldn’t work as well without the red and blue shirt (see more of the shirt in The Orange Ribbon and Cello Straw Beret )

Fading
The blue dye is what is known as semi-permanent—meaning it washes out over time. So my hair fades to turquoise before I get it dyed cobalt again.  Here are a couple of pictures where the bright blue has faded to a more subtle color.

In the first one, my turquoise hair matches my turquoise dress. (The same hat and dress are in the original Madame X hat post.) I also feel the turquoise hair highlights the black hat better than my natural color does. 

And finally, here is another red hat picture, in which my hair has faded to just hints of light blue. In this case, I felt no need for an outfit that pulled together the blue and red. The subtle blue doesn't overwhelm or fight with the red. 

Will I have blue hair forever? I doubt it. But I'm enjoying all the permutations, and their effects on hats!

​Recently, I dyed my hair blue. 
 
I first thought about dying my hair a bright color during college. It was the eighties, the era of Cyndi Lauper and Boy George. People in my dorm had bright hair, and I thought it might be fun to have it too—if I were a completely different type of person. Blue, I thought. I’d go for blue. If I were someone more bold, more interesting, more unusual.
 
But someone like me should stick with brown.
 
And I more or less did (with some occasional periods of highlights) until this year.
 
The Hat Project gave me the courage to wear the fabulous hats I’d been collecting for years, and wearing the hats turned out to be more fun that I would have predicted. So I decided to fulfil another longtime dream and dye my hair a bright color. I started with some pink streaks. First, my hair stylist gave me highlights, then we experimented with a couple of pinks, gilding my hair all over with a reddish-pink glow.
 
The effect was fun, but subtle—bright for a week or two, then little hints here and there. A couple of times, in a middle of a conversation, a person I hadn’t seen for a while would say “Ann, you have pink in your hair!” It wasn’t something that was always immediately noticeable. 

I put in the pink off and on for several months. (If you look carefully, you can see it the picture of the Giant, Glamorous Black Hat.) I always thought, “Maybe this is the last time, then I’ll go back to my natural hair.”  But then I decided that before I quit, I would go blue, as I had always wanted to.
 
Forty years after college, I was finally a bolder person. 

I loved it immediately.
 
But I also discovered that my darker, intensely colorful hair affected how my hats looked.  Some benefited from the extra contrast, some looked worse, and some just looked different. 
​
For example, this yellow ring hat really pops against the blue. 

Not better or worse, just a different look, with a bit more emphasis on the hat.

This white ring hat also seems brighter on the blue hair:

In the original picture, the golds of the necklace and scarf match the hair color and give the pallet harmony and sophistication. With the blue hair the white hat seems stark against the black, even with the hint of blue necklace. The veil becomes more prominent. Add in the red polka-dot sunglasses, and the look becomes accidentally patriotic. Now I know what hat to wear on the Fourth of July, assuming my hair is still blue then!

The hair color doesn't make these hats better or worse, just different--with more pop and less subtlety. 

Stay tuned for the next post, where i will show some hats that blue hair improves and others that blue hair worsens! 

“Look, they have typewriters,” my husband said, pointing at the yard sale across the street. We were out for a walk, a habit I took up during the pandemic when I was dying to get out of the house. (If you want to see photos from my walks, check out my Instagram at @annhillesland).
 
A few years ago, I had wanted an old typewriter to use as a plant holder, and even though we found one, we haven’t gotten out of the habit of looking for them. So we walked across the street, as we got closer, I saw something that excited me more than typewriters—hat boxes!

This box seemed promising—even though it was taped together, it was branded Stetson. Inside, I found a fedora. (Though the brim is narrow for a fedora, I think it is one, but I welcome more educated input).
 
Despite owning wide variety of hats, I have never had a fedora before. I try them on sometimes, but they don’t usually appeal to me. Like cowboy hats, their style usually doesn’t suit mine. Still, I liked this one—its basic black, its shy little red feather.
 
A couple were having the yard sale—the man said the hats belonged to the woman. When she saw my interest, she explained that the man, knowing she liked hats, would buy her one whenever he was in a hat shop and found one in her size.
 
My husband, knowing I wanted the hat but was hesitating, encouraged me to get it. He actually bought it, since I had not brought any money on this neighborhood walk. So, he, like the man at the yard sale, was showing his love for me by buying a hat.
 
Vintage hats are relics of a certain time and place. Often vintage hats have labels from particular milliners or hat stores, often including the place they were made or sold. So many old hats are not mass-produced, but hand-made or hand-decorated visions of an individual artist. In that way they are often more unique than many other pieces of vintage clothing.
 
Even though this hat is mass produced, made by probably the most famous American hat company, it's stamped “Square Stores for Men, 2787 Milwaukee Ave, Chicago” in gold inside on its leather hatband. This store no longer exists. But the hat does, a memento of a time and place that has vanished.
 
And what could be cooler than a fedora from Chicago? I wish I could have worn it to a blues club, but it turns out wearing it on a walk along the bluffs by the Pacific Ocean suited it just as well.

And for those wondering about my typwriter planter, here it is. I keep it in my writing room, next to my modern computer to connect me with writers of the last century, as the hats connect me to the past.