Whatever happened to hats?

Allira

What to do with old but lovely mother of the bride or groom hats?

I kept my mother-of-the-bride hat just in case I ever got invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace. Alas, no invitation has ever been forthcoming. I haven't been to Cheltenham or Ascot either.

Yes, I often wear a sun hat in summer.

An Amateur Dramatics group might be glad of them or craft groups who would use the material and adornments on their projects. You could ask on your local Facebook page, if you have one, if anyone would like them.
I bought a beautiful hat for a daughter's wedding and carried it carefully in a hat box on the train. Coming home it was crammed into the corner of my case because more than one person told me it made me look like the Queen Mother.

DH wore various sorts of headgear throughout his long military service, and when he retired he said he’d never wear anything on his head again. Then he tried on a tweed flat cap in a country outfitters one day and from then on, never had it off his head. He was distraught when he thought he’d lost it, but it was later discovered in a corner of the garage. It went with him on his last journey.

We always look in hat shops in France. Once saw one called Monsieur Pochat! We have a trendy sewing/handmade studio shop near us. I have 2 of her hats, one a bandeau. I tend to wear them at trendy markets, we get regular ones ten minutes away. Our last was a Pagan market. Great fun, lots of hand made stuff

Nowadays I wear woolly hats
in the winter and a sun hat if it's bright and hot outside and I'm gardening.
I often forget to wear the latter and bright light gives me a splitting headache .

I can remember a time when it wasn't considered proper for ladies to go out without hats especially to church.
There was a row at my old Baptist church about the teenager girls wearing trousers ,mini skirts and being bare headed.
I stopped going .
I looked around around my very traditional church last summer.
Ladies were wearing sundresses .
Not a hat in sight .
These days only the older men wear suits and ties .
The other men dress very casually.

Things have changed .

I have a small head, it goes with the rest of my small, fine boned frame. I have great difficulty finding a hat to fit, and to suit me.
I have a fur hat for winter and a black hat for funerals. My sun hat I bought in a shop in Sorrento, its a child size.
The hat I wear most often though is a beanie that I crocheted from chunky dusky pink yarn, it keeps my head warm in the cold weather and stays put on windy days.

I think hats can be ageing on older women - if ygmm.

I have several hooded coats as I like a touch of drama but daren't go near a woolly hat as I would never take it off .
Rather think cars were a factor in unpopularity as hats are just not needed.

I've suddenly had a rush of interest re hats mainly because I recently went with my son and daughter to my husband's investiture. I'm not one for big hats but I quite like small ones that can be pinned onto my hair. I don't normally wear a hat but it is fun to give it a go. Roll on the next 'do'.

Actually I tell a lie when I said I don't wear hats. I do wear a floppy cricket type hat in the garden. But that doesn't suit me either.
Unlike you Monica I have a large head and thick hair so its difficult actually keeping a hat on.
School hats were a winter large flat beret type hat and summer a white sort of Panama. Both horrid and pretty ridiculous when we were all 17 and 18!

HelterSkelter1

Actually I tell a lie when I said I don't wear hats. I do wear a floppy cricket type hat in the garden. But that doesn't suit me either.
Unlike you Monica I have a large head and thick hair so its difficult actually keeping a hat on.
School hats were a winter large flat beret type hat and summer a white sort of Panama. Both horrid and pretty ridiculous when we were all 17 and 18!

School hats were velour with a brim and a Panama with a brim in the summer. Hideous. I remember some girls throwing their Panamas into the river on the last day of school.

School hats were velour with a brim and a Panama with a brim in the summer. Hideous. I remember some girls throwing their Panamas into the river on the last day of school.

So we’re ours, you got a Conduct Mark if you were caught without it on your head outside school.
I dislike the Panama and always wanted a Boater!

Did you go to the same school as me J52?
Conduct marks? 🤔

It was lovely when men doffed their hats or caps when they saw you down the street or somewhere.

Made you feel like a lady.

When my dad’s funeral cortège was making its way to the crem many years ago, a farm worker in a field stopped what he was doing, took off his cap and stood whilst it all went past.

Very moving.

Nowadays they keep their baseball caps on in church and never think to remove them.

Calendar girl - yes that really bugs me when they don't take off their baseball caps.
When I was still working I remember a young lad getting bawled at for not taking off his cap inside the work building. That was a good number of years back. it may be different now,
My Dad used to wear a cap for work and a trilby for best.
My mum wore hats all the time, some very dressy. She had boxes full.
I have never posessed anything beyond a Fascinator which was for weddings, just don't feel good in a hat.

I have several hats if all descriptions and purposes. I even have them as decorative objects like people have pictures, hanging on the wall to be viewed with pleasure. They are works of art.

Along with the decorative handbags and gorgeous shoes, someone is going to have a field day when I go. I’d quite like them to go to the local nursery for the dressing up box. Mar ch better than Disney costumes🙁

Perhaps I’d better write that down……..

Redhead56
My dad trained as a milliner.
I still have an emerald green velvet hat he made for my mother - and the matching emerald green velvet coat my mother made to go to a wedding in.
She was a tailor.

I love hats, they do suit me but I rarely wear them.

I love them all - from the huge and wafty to the little pill box style (especially with a short veil)!

I remember an elderly great-aunt (died in the 60s) who’d absolutely never go out without a hat. And in novels set in the 40s/50s I’ve read of an old lady who wore a hat for a tea party (she belonged to a generation that still thought it correct) and someone’s cook who wore hers indoors all the time, inc. while making pastry!

A snippet I love from a Trollope novel (Victorian) has a character telling the lady he is taking out for dinner, ‘A lot of ladies dine there. You can dine in your bonnet.’ 😂

London Fashion Week recently showcased various headwear, whimsical hats etc.

coveteur.com/london-fashion-week-fall-winter-2026-trends#:~:text=It%27s%20been%20a%20big%20week,collaboration%20portion%20of%20the%20collection.

Women wore hats or headscarves all the time (outside the home) until the 70s because doing their hair was much more difficult then than it is now...think of the prickly rollers and the the hooded hair dryers. Putting a hat on is an "instant" do and women did not take their hats off even inside so it didn't matter if their hair wasn't perfect underneath, nobody would see it. We are much luckier now: so many hair appliances and products to poof up our hair that hats aren't needed unless for protection.

I wear sun hats all summer and to avoid dazzling sunshine in my eyes. No longer consider one for 'occasions' what's the point? Practical items of clothing only these days 😉

When I got married in the 60s, I told my mum and my future mother-in-law (separately) not to wear a hat because the other wouldn't - knowing they both hated them...

Me. I like hats, but my latest trilby-type doesn't fit any more because I had my hair cur too short!
Warm beanie with a bobble for winter... but I seem to have lost my favourite felt hat.

When horse riding I obviously wear a proper hat and occasionally a beanie type when walking the dog. Can't believe how stupid a so called 'pop star' looked when photographed wearing his hat, lying in a hospital bed!!!

It takes a particular head and face to suit hats, my mother was stunning and could wear anything on her head, I took after my dad’s side where the women all had rather masculine faces, no beards or moustaches but you get my drift, so if I wear a fancy hat I look like a man in drag, in my woolly hat I still look strange but don’t care because I want to keep warm.

I love hats, all sorts. For casual wear, I like a baker boy style (useful when my hair is a mess) I have a big head😁and sometimes it’s hard to get the right size. One size is often the wrong size.

Formal, casual, I like them all, except maybe the woollen style with a pom pom on the top.

My flying daughter no longer wears a hat since her uniform was updated and I think it’s a pity. She looked so smart with the hat.

On the other hand, my sister hates hats and says they just do not suit her.
Maybe it has something to do with the shape of our faces?🤔

I love how hats look on me but hate that they are so uncomfortable. That's why I don't wear them any more.

You ask what happened to hats?

I was a little girl in the 1950s when a lot of the women who had spent part of the war in the services had, on being demobbed, been so sick of having to wear a hat that they certainly were not going to do so in private life.

Vatican 2 made it possible for Catholic women and girls to go to church without a hat on their heads, and my generation of school-girls were plagued with absolutely hideous hats - round felt or panama hats with a narrow brim. They had to be worn with our uniform, so once we left school, guess what? No-one was going to make us wear hats.

Come the 1970s and most of us who were young and fashion-concious did wear large floppy felt hats for a while, but they had a tendency to blow off our heads, so they went out of fashion fairly quickly. Some of us wore caps of the kind worn by Victorian or late Regency school-boys. These too were a fashion gimick that did not last long.

This is what happened to hats in my lifetime.