And they’re all wearing fantastic hats.

Every year, Britain’s Royal Ascot week (it’s a horse thing) attracts the best - and certainly the boldest - in British millinery. We could tell you more, but when you’ve got images like these to work with, it’s hard to keep a clear head.

And to think - this is just day one!

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I have been looking for some sort of summer hat. In my daydreams, a floppy-brimmed sunhat does the trick nicely. I went as far as to visit a hat store a few weeks ago, plucking hat after hat off the racks and, inevitably, sighing and returning hat after hat back where it belonged – far away from my head. The last hat I tried on could have, I think, been perfect – but in the end I returned that one to the shelf, too. I wondered if it would be the sort of thing I bought while feeling hopeful and brave and then, once I was at home and faced with actually having to wear it out into the world, would chicken out.

I bought a hat this past winter. It was a little burgundy cloche and, at the time, it seemed like a nice way to ease myself into the hat world – it wasn’t too conspicuous, and it made me feel pretty classy. I wore it often and I felt stylish more than I ever felt uneasy. But, even then, every time I stepped out the door I was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that very few people wear hats anymore. My philosophy when it comes to fashion is, generally, not to care too much about what other people think – but where hats are concerned, maybe because hat wearing seems like some sort of lost art, I can’t help it. I care.

I think my obsession may have begun with my hat-wearing neighbour. I visited with her one night last fall, and watched in awe as she pulled hat after hat out of her closet, full of stories about where they came from and where she wore them and who she was with when it happened. I was amazed at how, decades and decades later (she is well into her seventies), every hat was still in excellent shape. I kept thinking, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to do this with my grandchildren (or grand-neighbours, as the case may be). I decided then and there that I was going to become a hat person. But it’s proving to be more of a challenge than I thought.

As far as my elusive summer hat goes, my most recent decision on the matter is this: I am going to ease myself into things all over again. I have started with the headscarf. So far, it’s working out rather well. Headscarves, too, are a form of headgear I’ve always admired from afar but been a bit wary of trying out on my own. But, depending on the day, a scarf makes me feel like a pirate or a biker or bohemian or some terrifyingly awesome combination of the three. I could get used to this.

And, if I can get used to this, I will get used to a sunhat, too.

It may take a while, but I’ll become a hat person yet. Just wait.

- Hailey Siracky

I made a special trip home for my small prairie town’s Blast from the Past Fashion Show. The event was put on by our local performing arts council, as a fundraiser for a festival they host every spring. When they sent out a call for both clothing and models, I was at once surprised and thrilled - the request was not only for clothing, but for the stories behind the clothing, too. They did not just want models, but models with some sort of connection to the clothes they would be wearing. The idea was that a granddaughter would walk down the runway in a blouse her great-grandmother made, or a niece would wear a dress from her aunt’s wedding in the seventies. The clothing was important, but equally important were the lives the clothes had led.

The weekend before the show, I had come from university to my tiny prairie hometown for a visit. That Sunday afternoon, my delightful seventy-something-year-old neighbour came over to deliver some food (as per always) and discuss the development of the show. She had donated some clothing and was excited about the prospect of it being worn again, so many years later.

“We’re supposed to wear hats,” she reported, “Come over next weekend and I’ll let you wear one of mine.” I may have let out a little squeal of excitement, and the prospect of vintage fashion in tiny St. Michael made my neighbour just as happy. As she left, after an hour of talking about pillbox hats and wedding shoes, she called from the doorway, “It’ll be more fun than a picnic!” I haven’t been to many picnics in my life, but now that the show is over I can tell you she was absolutely right.

When I arrived at the show on Sunday afternoon, hat firmly on my head, the place was abuzz with ladies and tea. Everyone was chatting or marveling over the displays of clothing, shoes and accessories that didn’t make it onto the runway.

Organized by decade, the program started with pieces as old as 1920 and worked its way into the seventies. The grand finale was a display of wedding dresses from the same span of years, the highlight of which was a woman who modeled her very own gown from 1952. With every few pieces came a story about where the piece was from – who it belonged to, where it was worn, who was wearing it now.

In a community where fashion rarely differs from the jeans-and-tee-shirts norm, this appreciation for clothing from the past surprised me – though only momentarily. The audience was full of the women who would have worn this clothing the first time around, the Red Hat society filled a table or two, and they needed a whole bus to bring residents from the seniors centre. Who would enjoy the stories behind vintage clothing more than the people the stories belonged to in the first place? But whether you were old enough to have lived through these periods or not, you understood every item of clothing was connected to a person, an event, a life.

Growing up, it never seemed as though my fellow small town inhabitants shared my love for thrift store treasures and clothing dug out of the back of my grandmother’s closet – but after everyone’s enthusiasm for Blast from the Past (old and young and in-between), it’s possible I’ve been wrong all along.

-Hailey Siracky

While recently in London, I stopped by the Victoria and Albert Museum for the recently concluded Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones. The exhibition featured a handpicked assortment of hats grouped by materials and styles (think “turbans”, “plastic”, “geometric” and “nature-inspired”) which Jones felt best illustrated the limitless sources of millinery inspiration.

Catering to the knowledgeable couture-wearer and the fashion-layman, the exhibition included hats worn by the fashion elite, such as several sported by Anna Piaggi, alongside famous cinematic caps, like Audrey Hepburn’s pink straw and silk bonnet from My Fair Lady. Some might say millinery is an oft-unappreciated art, but it was hard to believe that in a room full of people ooh-ing over beaded appliqué flowers and watching videos on top-hat construction. And as Jones – himself a legendary milliner for celebrities and designers alike – points out, when someone wears a fabulous hat, they command attention!

“A hat makes clothing identifiable, dramatic – and, most importantly, Fashion…It’s the cherry on the cake, the dot on the ‘i’, the exclamation mark, the fashion focus.” -Stephen Jones

Today hats are often sold in department stores, making the nostalgic allure of a hat shop (and those scrumptious hat boxes!) even more endearing. Milliners were originally supposed to recommend face-flattering hat styles to wealthy clientele who could swan around the showroom selecting fabrics. And fun fact: apparently Lilly Daché, a milliner in New York in the 30s even had colour coded celebrity fitting rooms: gold for blonds and silver for brunettes.

All this hat knowledge intake made me feel a bit giddy, and upon my return home, my sister and I decided to embark on a little headgear hunt of our own. Bottom-line: family is an EXCELLENT source for hats – vintage and contemporary alike…seriously, one man’s (or father’s specifically) Indian Jones fedora is another girl’s indie cap and grandmothers knew sunhats were cool even before skin cancer. As the summer heats up, I can’t wait to search out new wide brims, remembering “however, the cardinal rule of hat-buying, as French fashion editor Genevieve Dariaux noted, is to ‘take the one you fall in love with, which mysteriously ‘does something’ for you, which magically makes you feel more beautiful.’”

Amen to [t]hats!

- Esmé Hogeveen