Hats Off to Hats

Wit and whimsy for the head

The hat is back! With this fall's revival of the neatly proportioned, high-glamour image of the '40s, the little hats of yesteryear are once again topping off designer collections in Paris and the U.S. Scorned for over a decade as too matronly or dressy, hats are no longer worn with somber propriety but with a playful insouciance that adds a dash of humor to the sophisticated silhouette. Tipped forward on the head at a rakish angle and frequently garnished with feathers and fur, the new hats are, as Couturier Karl Lagerfeld of Chloe says, "little jokes to be worn like the dot of the letter i."

Echoing Paris' tongue-in-cheek use of millinery, American hats create a kind of instant costume chic. "Young women end up buying a whole wardrobe of them," says Barbara Ashley, Bloomingdale's millinery buyer, who has stocked her hat bar with models ranging in price from $10 to $250. There are stylized versions of men's classic hats--snappy black derbies and soft, shallow fedoras--as well as girlish takeoffs on student beanies, sailor hats and soldier caps. Perhaps most popular of all is the cocktail hat. Feminine flourishes of velvet and silk, they are embroidered with sequins, strewn with rhinestones and bedecked with veils. Says Designer Hubert Givenchy: "They almost change a woman's behavior. When a woman wears a veil, she does not walk the same way as when she is wearing jeans."

Halston, the designer who started his career as a milliner, believes that "a spectacularly flattering hat is the ultimate ornamentation. When Queen Elizabeth has a white-tie party, she wears her crown. It sets her apart from everyone." The right hat, chosen from today's many mad caps, can do the same for any woman. qed

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