What were Americans thinking when they let hats become obsolete?

Oh, we wear hats during dire winter snowstorms and baseball games, but for the rest of the year, most American women would rather wear stilettos than a hat.

Only the British, and particularly the Monarchy, seem to recognize the benefits. They wear hats for almost any occasion –  from garden parties to polo matches, and from weddings to Wimbledon.

British women have such a fascination with hats that they have a whole unique category never adopted in the U.S.  The fascinator is a hair adornment attached with a  clip or comb and it is decorated with ribbons, stones, flowers, and feathers. The more outlandish, the better for the social media fashion influencer. But apparently, even a princess can go too far, as Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie could attest.

Apparently, attiring your head like a gift or an ostrich for a royal wedding is frowned upon by even the most fashion-forward reviewers.

Diana Mather, a senior tutor for The English Manner etiquette consultancy, asserts,  “Up until the late 1950s ladies were very seldom seen without a hat as it was not considered ‘the thing’ for ladies to show their hair in public,”

I have another theory about why they still wear hats. Put simply… hats hide bad hair days.

Imagine popping on an adorable hat when you have a wedding to attend, your roots are showing, but you have no time to do tress triage! And for those days when it looks like your hair got caught in a monsoon or a cotton candy machine, camouflage those curls with a fascinator!

And by the way, when you don a titillating tiara or captivating crown for that exciting evening affair, then you’re pulling out the big guns. Seriously, who’s going to even be looking at your hair when you’ve got diamonds and gemstones dripping above it?

On the other hand, maybe we got rid of hats because most of us like to think of our hair as one of our crowing glories, even when it misbehaves.

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Published in the March 5, 2020 issue of Beyond the Nest’s Free Weekly newsletter