British Wedding Fashion: What's with the Ridiculous Hats

[violacrane]

@Baker

Meow!

For a woman her age(and I’m not far from it myself), I don’t think she looks half bad. She’s fit looking, well groomed, and I thought her clothes looked good.

I don’t understand why people snipe at her looks. Di was attractive but if you really looked at her, feature by feature, she was no classic beauty.

Diana still photographed well but if you loked at her dispassionately her face was taking on a distinctly pinched look. I don’t think she would have aged well.

As to hats at weddings, what everyone else said, and also that nobody is supposed to wear a dress that outshines the bride’s but the hats are a different matter. And I’m surprised no one has mentioned the traditional millinery rivalry between the mothers of the bride and groom (and gawd help us all if there are stepmums involved as well!).

[Jervoise]

@irishgirl

A formal daytime event requires morning suits for the gentlemen and hats for the ladies. It is generally regarded as proper for a lady to keep her head covered in a church, but never for a man, thus the men wearing top hats with their morning suits removed them on entering the church. Strictly speaking the ladies should also be wearing gloves, but nobody except the Queen seemed to do that.

Joanna Lumley was wearing gloves (and a big hat with a flower).

Morning suit should traditionally be worn, but I notice Tony Blair, Charles Kennedy and Michael Howard were in lounge suits.

[Zebra]

I love ladies in hats!

The bigger the better!

Although small cute hats are nice too.

[missbunny]

@Grits and Hard Toast

I don’t think I really understood the hat thing until I moved to Kentucky and attended the Derby. It is all about The Hat. Wearing a hat for a special occasion is just plain fun. For Derby we pick out The Hat first, then buy an outfit to match.

And once you wear one for a special occasion, then they just get bigger and more outrageous. You get to the point where you think, well if I am going to the trouble of wearing a hat, might as well make it a fun one.

There’s a charity event here in Boston - the Rose Garden Party - where ladies wearing hats are part of the event. Some people start planning their hats a year ahead of time. Supposedly people do the same thing you do - they have the hat designed first and then find the dress. It’s all about The Hat.

[Liberal]

I thought Camilla’s hat looked like bent wheat straw. It took me a second to realize that it was a hat, and that she and Charles had not just been in a hay loft together.