A hat is a flag, a shield, a bit of armor, and the badge of femininity. A hat is the difference between wearing clothes and wearing a costume; it's the difference between being dressed and being dressed up....A hat is to be stylish in, to glow under, to flirt beneath, to make all others seem jealous over, and to make all men feel masculine about. A piece of magic is a hat. -- Martha Sliter, author
The other afternoon I was going out for a couple of hours to do some errands. For some reason, as I left the house I put on my favorite hat at a jaunty angle. It's a lovely hat, a stunner, in fact. Sort of like a cross between a beret and a cloche, made of misty gray quilted fabric with a button provocatively placed on the side. When I wear that hat, I feel like a million bucks, even if my hair isn't at its best and I'm a little tired.
After completing my errands, I stopped in at a local Italian restaurant for a glass of Pinot Grigio. I was relaxing and unwinding when I felt a tap on my left shoulder. The woman next to me pointed at my hat and exclaimed in a loud voice, "My dear, it's YOU!" I took that as a compliment. She went on to comment that that style of hat flatters very few women, but was just right for me.
Actually, I rarely wear hats; maybe a wide-brimmed straw hat to shield my eyes from the summer sun, but never a baseball cap, as I see some women wearing. I used to love cartwheel hats made of luxurious fabrics like chiffon, that were modeled at the fashion shows in Paris. Those hats were so romantic! But I couldn't see wearing one around town in Cincinnati, where I was living at the time. I remember, though, that when I first went to work in 1962, at a snooty Boston publisher, we women employees were encouraged to wear suits, silk blouses, heels, white gloves, and hats -- often with veils.
I've never had the confidence that I could walk into a room wearing a gorgeous hat, and carry it off successfully, perhaps even with an air of nonchalance. I imagined that people would look at me in my gorgeous hat and think I was ridiculous, out of place, pretending to be more fashionable than I really am.
So that unsolicited compliment last week about my hat got me thinking. Why not throw caution to the wind and wear my favorite hat whenever I feel like it? And feel like a million bucks more often.
Linda Jay Geldens, www.LindaJayGeldens.com
Click here for more of Linda's posts.
Comments