A lovely reader asked me for my response to some fashion advice she heard suggesting that women over fifty should never wear hats.
WHAT!????????????
As the granddaughter of a milliner, I support hat-wearing at all ages, and who looks better in a beautiful hat than a woman d’un certain age?
Another commenter wondered if the originator of this so-called “advice” was a secret misogynist who just wants all women over fifty to catch their death and perish of pneumonia. I suspect she may be onto something.
Allison submitted this delightful commentary on hat-donning by the inimitable Miss Manners, Judith Martin. Read and laugh.
At any rate, PeaceBang thinks it’s perfectly ridiculous advice. Please, ladies, carry on with your hat-wearing. I certainly shall, and hope I’ll be wearing this one until the end of my days, although never in a ministerial setting, of course:
Lord, look at all that chin – Peacebang, you look positively skinny and anti-meat-bally in this photo!!
(My girlfriends in WW and I measure weight loss by “chin emergence” and “neck loss.” It helps!)
[Just a good angle, kitty cat, but thanks for the props just the same. I need to start writing EVERYTHING down again and get back on track. – PB]
You are so right! Hats, hats, hats — even if you’re over 60!
Not wear hats after 50?!?!?!?!? WTF?
That definitely would never have flown in the black church I grew up in. Some of the best hats were worn by those grande dames over 50.
If you can get your hands on it, find a copy of the book “Crowns” and you will see that plenty of women in that book are over 50.
So tell whoever told you that rule to stick it up their hat! 🙂
[Oh honey, you know I already have, and LOVE, that book!! – PB]
I have always loved Judith Martin’s (Miss Manners’) explanation of the difference between the sort of hat one might wear to church and the other sort (known as a cocktail hat). In summary (she writes wonderfully well, and I can’t begine to approach her style), a church-going hat looks as if it has been constructed, and says, charmingly, “When God created me he did a good job, and I am grateful for that.” A cocktail hat looks as if it just landed in your hair, and it says, also charmingly, “Why, hello there.”
Please see the following link, which probably won’t look right, and check out her fuller answer to the question at the bottom of page 637. She also charmingly discusses other issues other issues related to chapeaux.
XHTML:
yup, me again, and you will probably not believe that I used to be paid to write HGML.
If you click on the funny pink above, you will go there. PB, if you can figure out how to make it look right, please do so.