I’m not referring to baseball caps.
Recent Jubilee photos from Britain are filled with huge elaborate hats.
Are they still fashionable anywhere else in the world?
I like Kate’s red hat
A bit distracting
http://www.graziadaily.co.uk/pub/21publish/f/fashion/kate-middleton-Philip-Treacy-hat.jpg
You’ve never been to or seen the Kentucky Derby, I take it.
Or any AME church on a Sunday.
African Methodist Episcopal for those of you who might not know is a denomination here in the U.S. mostly made up of African Americans.
Never mind hats, I never realized until my brother’s wedding that women in England were expected to wear “fascinators” at formal events. My reaction: WTF is a “fascinator”? My wife had to research this (and where to obtain one, at no doubt vast expense) 
So that’s what those things are called. I’ve been seeing those weird hats in all the Jubilee photos. Fascinating. 
I thought facinators WERE hats. 
Women type, um, hat thingies…
-XT
No joke. There’s even a hatinator. Man, those Brits love their hats. Dressing up is fun. I wish the fashion got popular here.
http://www.snootyfrox.co.uk/accessories/hatinators/nigel_rayment_10491_hatinator
To really get the flavor, read Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats by Craig Marberry and Michael Cunningham. A couple of shots from the book can be seen on Cunningham’s website here.
Yeah fascinators are pretty much standard issue here too for weddings.
These are royals. Normal British people do not wear weird hats, any more than we wear crowns. Very few British people wear hats at all these days. They are probably less common than they are in the USA.
Agreed. The only place a normal British woman is likely to wear a fancy hat is at a wedding, or some formal occasion where they are trying to ape times past.
I think they probably know that. They’re are still worn at weddings though, I think I was the only one without one at the last wedding I went to.
And then, of course, we have Royal Ascot.
Which is also the instance where you’re most likely to see hats or mantillas in Spain. One of the differences between “our side” and “their side” at my cousin’s recent wedding is that none of the people on our side wore any kind of head covering but about two-thirds of the women and a third of the men on theirs did; their dresses were more elaborate in general (I’d been noticing the differences before discovering the split followed “side” lines; I’m my cousin’s out-of-town relative so there were many people in our side I hadn’t seen in years).
Or at village fetes, or church fairs or … really any outdoor event where there’s a decent excuse to dress up.
They appear to be a mutation of a decorative hair comb. Some of them aspire to hat-dom in size and elaboration, others hark back to their comb-like ancestry.
That’s just my observation anyway - I am no expert. Far from it. 
Where is “here”?
An Gadai is in Ireland, I believe.
Every few years, the fashion people issue a proclamation: “Hats Are BACK!” Pictures of celebrities and fashionistas wearing new, kicky, fun hats. Articles by designers hopefully asserting that the time has come for women to add hats to the accessory list. The only problem being that no matter how enthusiastically they say “Hats Are BACK!” - they never are, for the vast majority. The British hat-wearing thing is an anomaly, something to get attention, something ‘fun’, and ultimately means nothing. Like white gloves, stockings with seams up the back, and old fashioned girdles, decorative hats are a thing of the past to most of us. IMO.
When I was down south, I used to wear my Panama regularly. I’ve not really had much occasion to wear it this year. 
I actually have a floppy hat which I wear when it’s raining: it keeps my anorak hood in just the right place.