The Tapestry Hat

​Of all the art fair hats I’ve bought, only the milliner of this one, Delores Pride, put her phone number in it. I haven’t called it—that was her phone number in the 90s, but it shows that this is a pre-internet hat. Now a hatmaker would likely put in a URL, or even a Twitter or Instagram handle.
 
I don’t know whether she still sews hats or not, but this is an especially well-made hat. The bow is on a pin for decorative flexibility, but she’s tacked it down to stay in place. So you can remove it if you like, but as long as it’s on the hat, it’s staying put and not curling or shifting.
 
The style is cute, too, sort of an adorned, slightly casual pillbox. So why haven’t I worn it for years?
 
The fabric. I loved it when I chose it, but to me, this hat’s fabric has not dated well. The tapestry look has not been in style for a while. If you don’t believe me, type “tapestry vest” into Etsy and see what wonders from the eighties and nineties come up. Also, though when I bought this hat, I thought of it as purple, in reality it has just as much beige as purple. Beige is the color (if you can call beige a color) that looks the worst on me.
 
I would probably still wear it often if I had simply chosen a different fabric.  
 
I had a plan for wearing this hat…I was going to go wine tasting. The pattern is of grapes and leaves:

​I thought it would be a nice fall hat, but I didn’t get to it this fall. No problem, I thought. I’ll wait till spring when the vines leaf out again. Of course, I didn’t count on every wine tasting room being closed.
 
So, instead of tasting, we drove out to a local winery for curbside pickup. They kindly let us walk around the grounds. If you have a favorite local business to support (be it winery, restaurant, auto shop, etc.) now is the time!

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