I'm a big fan of hats, always have been, but the gems sported during the summer wedding season only serve to remind me that generally, we just don't wear them like we used to. In fact, we wear them so infrequently now that they've become a bit of a glass-cased oddity.
In May, I was fortunate enough to catch the V&A's 'Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones' exhibition - and it didn't disappoint. In collaboration with the V&A, Stephen Jones (a magnificent milliner himself) put together an amazing collection of headgear ranging from the neat to the nuts, but aside from some of the more outlandish hats, I was most surprised by onlooker reactions. People gawped and shrieked at the hats on show as though they were looking at extra-terrestrial artifacts and although admittedly some of the designs were a bit X Files 'out there', the majority were merely beautiful examples of once fashionable accessories.
Of course, there are still mad hatters here and there (and I really can't write a blog on hats without tipping my own to the late, great Isabella Blow) but I'm looking forward to a mass-hat-resurgence. Ascot in June saw the usual array of weird and wonderful, as did the Chelsea Flower Show the month before, and Diane von Furstenberg's pompom hats are already being cited as the must-have accessory of autumn/winter 2009, so who knows...maybe by the end of the year hats will regain their rightful place - out of glass cabinets and onto our noggins.
The microsite for the V&A hats exhibition is still online btw, and well worth a look: http://www.vam.ac.uk/microsites/hats-anthology/
In May, I was fortunate enough to catch the V&A's 'Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones' exhibition - and it didn't disappoint. In collaboration with the V&A, Stephen Jones (a magnificent milliner himself) put together an amazing collection of headgear ranging from the neat to the nuts, but aside from some of the more outlandish hats, I was most surprised by onlooker reactions. People gawped and shrieked at the hats on show as though they were looking at extra-terrestrial artifacts and although admittedly some of the designs were a bit X Files 'out there', the majority were merely beautiful examples of once fashionable accessories.
Of course, there are still mad hatters here and there (and I really can't write a blog on hats without tipping my own to the late, great Isabella Blow) but I'm looking forward to a mass-hat-resurgence. Ascot in June saw the usual array of weird and wonderful, as did the Chelsea Flower Show the month before, and Diane von Furstenberg's pompom hats are already being cited as the must-have accessory of autumn/winter 2009, so who knows...maybe by the end of the year hats will regain their rightful place - out of glass cabinets and onto our noggins.
The microsite for the V&A hats exhibition is still online btw, and well worth a look: http://www.vam.ac.uk/microsites/hats-anthology/
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