Friday, July 10, 2009

Favorite Excuses to Wear A Hat?*

Here's my running list of excuses to wear a hat:

1. I'm in a bad mood and I need compliments, car honks and whistles to get me out of it.
2. I relish the idea of wearing my fedora and posing next to any "Public Enemies" poster I can find with the behatted Johnny Depp. Getting harder as newer posters get slapped on top of older ones.
3. I long for a waitress/waiter to treat me extra nice when I sit down to eat in their workplace.
4. I'm feeling vaguely like the brooding guy in a coat, hat in the famous painting Nighthawks painting by Edward Hopper.
5. I need to keep warm but I don't want to carry a jacket, but hope a hat and a lightweight scarf will do the trick.
6. I want the train engineer to toot his horn when I wave to him.
7. I don't want to be bothered, cancelling out #1.
8. I'm eager to hide my messy, unruly locks which really need to be washed.
9. I can pretend it's the 1940s just for a minute or two, although I'm truly happy to be alive now.
10. I must match the bottom half of my body with the upper part. A black hat usually does the trick.
11. I duck outside and I know it's going to rain. A hat, even the straw variety, will protect me even if it self-destructs during the process.
12. The link for the Ginger Spam salad recipe on the top of my Gmail account page doesn't seem remotely appealing, but wearing a hat does.
13. The dust bunny population is exploding in my closet, which requires me to open up and clean off the covers of a few hat boxes. Some hats of the vintage variety clamber out onto my head. Creepy.
14. I seek to impress my various nieces and nephews with my eccentric aunt image. A cat or two would round out that perception.
15. Feeling bloated, a hat takes my mind off of how crummy I think I look. Amazing how the head doesn't gain pounds? I'm not talking about the neck.
16. I don't want to wear a necklace, but a hat feels....just right.
17. I can focus better since a hat, particularly one with a brim, limits my peripheral vision.
18. Putting on a hat makes me think of the various sewn and knitted hats that are waiting to be completed and I feel really guilty.
19. I can flag down the bus driver to stop on a dented dime and pick me up even if I'm not standing at an authorized stop.
20. I need a story to tell at the end of the day. A hat worn somewhere, somehow guarantees it, don't you think?

What are your favorite reasons to wear a hat?
* Picture taken at the intersection of Lawrence and Clark Streets in Chicago yesterday.

3 comments:

ShannonAnn said...

I love hats, but I feel very uncomfortable putting together outfits. I wish there were more photos of people wearing modern outfits with hats so I can see how it's done.
I'm also unsure about etiquette, for example where hats may be appropriate or inappropriate?

Cristina de Prada - milliner said...

Wearing a hat: I feel better, look prettier and younger, get compliments, feel cooler in summer, warmer in winter...

No need for excuses, it's a necessity!... Why isn't everyone wearing a hat?!

Thoughts on Life and Millinery. said...

Wear a hat...get a story to tell. Oh so true. And 99.9% of the time the story involves someone complementing me on my hat.