Have to Have Hats

Here’s another photo-heavy post. After doing a post on shoes, I felt that I must do one on hats, in order to honor the special place they have in my heart. Hats are the only accessory that can compete with - or, dare I say it, outweigh - my love for vintage shoes. Unlike shoes, which play a more practical role in everyday life, hats aren’t exactly necessary. But, as the title of this post says, I simply must have them. I love them. The right hat can complete any outfit, can change the mood of it, can flatter or disguise certain features. Hats can be serious, plain, feminine, or frivolous, though I tend to favor the latter two categories of hats. And they’re just freakin’ awesome, to put it inarticulately. People today seem to really notice hats – for better and for worse. Many times I’ve worn the same outfit in public, without a hat and with a hat, and when I wore it with the hat, the nice comments (and the rude stares/stinkeye) increased manifold. I suppose this is because nowadays hats simply aren’t done, unless you wear a doo-rag/baseball cap or are British nobility at a wedding or day at the races. But this shows just how polarizing modern hat styles are – they’re either extremely casual or very fancy. There’s not much of an everyday nice-casual presence of hats. How I wish this wasn’t the case.

I don’t own many hats that I like to wear out (not the right era – I got a huge lot for nearly pennies of Craigslist last winter, but I couldn’t see most of them before I got them, only to realize they were mostly 50s and 60s. Poo.), but I’ve got 3 or 4 I’m very fond of, mostly from vintage shops. I’ve also gathered pictures of hats I pine for over the past year or so – the folder in my iPhoto is currently hundreds strong. Below I’ve shared a few (ahem... twenty-five) that I do wish I could miraculously find during my next visit to my friendly local antique or vintage shop.

What type of hats do you like? Do you have a particular era of millinery that makes you weak with materialistic longing?

Note: I don't know the sources of many of these pictures! I've just collected them over time via Google images and other blogs. If I took someone's original image, let me know and I'll give credit/remove it!

Especially the top red one!

Carole Lombard. I love this one!

I definitely have a soft spot for wartime inspired clothing, such as this patriotic getup (I like the "V" pin!), but I don't know if I would wear this type of hat on a regular day. I'd have to see how confident I was feeling/how willing I was to deflect questions about if I'm in the armed forces. 

I LOVE this hat of Ginger's! In general I've sort of got a thing for this type of pointy-ish topped hat.

Um. Okay, pretty much everything in this picture. Sigh, these dresses! And the hats are all lovely - I find the far left bowl-shaped one amusing and charming.

This is actually from a shoe ad, but the hat really caught my eye. Yeah, I definitely have a thing for pointy hats.

Besides liking this movie still in general (and loving Clark Gable sans mustache! Isn't he so much more handsome without that bothersome skinny thing hanging around below his nose?!) and Jean Harlow's gorgeous dress/hair/face, isn't this hat adorable? Maybe one of my favorites from the set. 

Seen on Ebay a while ago.

I love all the colors!

Nice hats and dresses, again. 

Bizarre and over-the-top (I feel like it belongs in an elaborate Busby Berkeley number), and certainly not for everyday wearing, but isn't it fun to look at? 

Don't know if I could pull this off, but again, fun to look at!

Stills I took from a Pathe archive film a few months ago. 

A very young and beautiful Lucille Ball. With a nice hat.

A beautiful illustration with a lovely hat and (floating) glove. 

AWESOME hat! This might be my favorite. I wonder what color it was supposed to be?

Alice Faye, looking cute and wearing cute everything, hat and suit especially. 

I lied. This is actually my favorite of all of these.

Did I emphasize enough how much I like pointy hats? Ruby Keeler in a rather simple one.

- Emily