“Hang Your Hat On”
To “hang your hat on” something means to depend on “it” and depend on it we are! I am holding on to high hopes that this year will be better, safer for all and eventually including travel and gatherings. This Sunday, we explore the history of hats. Hats are one of my favorite sculptural art forms, differing in design ‘dependent upon’ both the designer’s vision and who the hat wearer will be. It has been one of my traditions to hand out hats, from my antique collection - to dancers from visiting companies - to adorn and celebrate while in Jackson.
The History of Hats
One of the first pictorial depictions of a hat appears in a tomb painting from Thebes, Egypt, which shows a man wearing a conical straw hat, dated to around 3200 BC. Hats were commonly worn in ancient Egypt. Many upper-class Egyptians shaved their heads, then covered it in a headdress intended to help them keep cool.
Cool hats on cool people…
(June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975) Josephine Baker was an American-born French entertainer, French Resistance agent and civil rights activist. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. She was the first Black woman to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 silent film Siren of the Tropics.
“Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one’s soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood”.
(May 4, 1929 - January 20, 1993) Audrey Hepburn's status as a global style icon owes as much to her endless assortment of fabulous headwear as it does to her body of film work. Hepburn and her hats were a match made in heaven and for decades she not only graced the silver screen but the cover of every glossy magazine throughout the world, rarely captured without her signature accessory. Hepburn starred in many great films including Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany's, My Fair Lady and, of course, Charade, the movie that started the craze for her famous pillbox hat, much loved by Jackie Kennedy. Hepburn will always be remembered for her incredible hats, which have become part of our cultural heritage and movie folklore. From Givenchy, Mr. John and Dior to Cecil Beaton and Balenciaga, Hepburn inspired loyalty, set trends and cemented reputations.
(April 16, 1889 - December 25, 1977) Charlie Chaplin was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, The Tramp, identified with his bowler hat. He is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry.
“Simplicity is a difficult thing to achieve. Life can be wonderful if you're not afraid of it. Imagination means nothing without doing. Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease from pain. You'll never find rainbows if you're looking down. Let us strive for the impossible”.
Brigitte Bardot was born and raised in Paris in 1934 and was an aspiring ballerina in her early life. She was often referred to by her initials B.B.,and is a French animal rights activist. Brigitte started her acting career in 1952 and achieved international recognition in 1957 for her role in And God Created Woman (1956). Famous for portraying sexually emancipated personae with hedonistic lifestyles, she was one of the best known sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s. B.B. is approaching her 87th birthday this new year!
The Cowboy Hat, first created in 1865, is the iconic design of our home, the Mountain West. First called the “Boss of Plains”, the hat was created by John B Stetson in Philadelphia. The design had some similarities to what we are familiar with today, but was much simpler in style with a flat brim and smooth rounded crown. The 1969 film hit, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with Robert Redford and Paul Newman, which is about the real-life bandits of the same name, starred the cowboy hat styles we are familiar with today.
The history of the ‘flat cap’, defined now as a low- lying, rounded hat with a short, stiff rim extending out over the eyes, was originally called a ‘bonnet’. The bonnet was born in 1571 in the United Kingdom because of a law that passed requiring every male over the age of six to wear a woolen cap on Sundays and public holidays. Al Pacino and Franco Citti in wore the flat cap in the film 'The Godfather' in 1972.
In the rain-slicked and neon-lit streets of Tokyo, three masked dancers are introduced by the melancholic sounds of the Chinese song “What the Pipa Says”. Wearing matching silk-woven traditional Chinese attire, black boots and straw hats, the veiled trio performs a brilliantly choreographed routine in the empty street. The fluidity and finesse of their movements almost appear to be giving a subtle nod to movements seen in Tai-chi and Chinese kung-fu. This unique street dance performance was the debut appearance of the Dancing Strawhats.
My dad used to say - use your head for something other then a hat rack.
Join us in “hanging our hats on”
continuing to be creative problem solvers
in this time of opportunity to
think different and create change.