THE NEW YORK TIMES REVERES HEADWEAR AGAIN

The hat must be a big deal in fashion circles (don’t we wish) because the “New York Times” had another half page homage to hats with plumage and fun stuff. The photo was bright and upbeat (you sort of need that in today’s world) and the hats were on par with designer duds that normally fill the Times fashion pages. We’ve been talking about how hats need to be exotic and expensive so people will appreciate and revere them (like watches). And Ralph Lauren did just that with feathers that upped the retail ante. Here’s to hats!

The story and hat origins are below.

Hats in the Picture:
Clockwise from left: Yellow corduroy hat with feather, $990 at Carolina Herrera. Black dress hat, $69 at amishcraft.com. Pale blue bowler, $38 at urbanoutfitters.com. Patricia Underwood for Ralph Lauren plaid hunting cap, $525 (with feathers, $950) at Ralph Lauren. Albertus Swanepoel black fedora with spiral guinea fowl feathers, $425 at Barneys New York. Albertus Swanepoel Western hat with distressed ribbon, $350 at Barneys. Black fedora with feather, $950 at Ralph Lauren.

The Way You Wear Your Hat
ACCORDING to a salesman at the Brooklyn shop Butter, it took less than one week for Ann Demeulemeester’s wide-brimmed swingers to sell out. Sonia Rykiel’s candy-colored bowlers, another coveted hat this season, have long been gone from her Madison Avenue boutique (although at Urban Outfitters, similar styles are available for one-twentieth of the price). The point? While hats will probably never be as popular as they were a half-century ago, there has clearly been a resurgence.

“I’ve been at it 15 years,” said the milliner Albertus Swanepoel, who was a runner-up at this week’s CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award. “And it’s only recently that I haven’t had to have three other jobs.”

As the man behind Proenza Schouler’s sleek cloches from last fall and Carolina Herrera’s theatrical Alpine hats this year (not to mention the fedora with swirling feathers that Jennifer Aniston donned on “30 Rock” last Thursday), Mr. Swanepoel has had a strong hand in making hats look modern again. A rugged Western hat assumes a kind of elegance with an antiqued ribbon wrapped around the crown; a cloche is merely a costume piece until it’s shaped close to the face, covering the eyes for an air of cool.

The key to wearing a hat well, Mr. Swanepoel advised, is making it your own. “You almost have to have a relationship with it,” he said. “But not in a precious way. You have to wear it with a certain carelessness.

“Like perfume, it has to be personal.”

By KARIN NELSON
New York Times