What is the point of hats? If you’re a medieval noblewoman, you’ll probably say the bit at the top, and we’ll all clap and laugh gently for fear of losing our bodily hat blocks. For the rest of us, though, we might see the question as valid and very, very serious. We’re not talking functional hats here – the builder’s hard hat; the rambler’s woolly hat or the baker’s hygienic little number. No, the type we wear at weddings and swanky horse races, the ones that seem from the outside to require an awful lot of hands-on effort if they are to be prevented from bolting.

Like most purely decorative items of clothing, the fancy hat can at least trace its heritage back to necessity. In the case of the formal hats of the aforementioned type, there are enough clues in their brims and the lacy features to suggest that keeping the sun off delicate faces on rare excursions out into the open was the inspiration. A hat certainly has the advantage over a parasol that it leaves two hands free for filling in betting slips and swigging champagne from a plastic flute.

Once the tasteful fashion designers caught wind of the possibilities, it would only be a matter of time before form gave way to function and the formal hat would mutate into fruit bowls, strawberry punnets, sausage dinners and croquet lawns. But the flamboyant extremes are only attention-grabbers in a field that can actually contain great taste and refinement when done well. The subtle balance of looking fantastic while not drawing attention to oneself is particularly tricky, not least because at head level your likelihood of standing out in a crowd depends entirely on what everyone else is wearing. The designer who masters that one is guaranteed a head start.

But evolution was to have another trick up its sleeve in the world of hat design: the fascinator. It cannot accurately be described as a hat, but labelling it a hair clip, headband, slide or hair corsage doesn’t help either. You know when it’s a fascinator because, well,, you’re fascinated by it. The world’s most famous fascinator must be the one worn by Princess Beatrice at the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2011. One of the most remarkable features of that fascinator was that it clearly outshone the one worn by her sister Eugenie. It became an instant cult classic, with people photoshopping it onto all sorts of historical figures, and ended up raising £80,000 for Unicef at auction.

We can only guess at the next step the hat will take in its evolution. But we can definitely see the path it has taken so far. A trip to a good vintage clothing store will pay dividends if you’re looking for a unique hat for a formal occasion. From the understated to the extreme, there will be a hat to match any gown, and it’ll be guaranteed to be the talking point of the day – unless royalty is invited, of course.

Nothing beats range of a classic women\’s hats for getting people excited about a big social occasion and James tells us how vintage clothing clothing stores are always being asked for them now.

Nothing beats range of a classic women\’s hats for getting people excited about a big social occasion and James tells us how vintage clothing clothing stores like http://www.rokit.co.uk are always being asked for them now.

Author Bio: Nothing beats range of a classic women\’s hats for getting people excited about a big social occasion and James tells us how vintage clothing clothing stores are always being asked for them now.

Category: Womens Interest
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