People Who Are (or Were) Famous for Their HatsI’d like to preface this post by letting you all know that I took my own advice.  Yesterday, I put on a black and white outfit, and was going to use a long hot pink scarf for a headband.  But on a whim I tied it around my waist and decided it looked much cooler that way – and it broke up the monotony of the black and white.  *Curtsies*


When you think of certain people, you automatically picture them with a hat on.  Or when someone mentions a certain hat style, you automatically picture a certain person.  Just like Superman and his cape, the man and the costume become inextricably intertwined.

I was going to leave fictional characters like The Man in the Yellow Hat, or Sherlock Holmes and his deerstalker, off this list, but I came across the term “alice band” and decided it was too cute to leave out.  So, here’s a short list of people and the headgear that made them great –or the headgear that they made great.

  1. Nefertiti and her “cap crown” – the name of this Egyptian queen immediately calls to mind the famous 3000-year-old limestone bust of her wearing a tall, blue headdress – she’s famous for the beautiful face under it as well.
  2. Anne Boleyn, second (and doomed) wife of Henry VIII of England, brought the French hood style to England from France.  It became fashionable as she became more popular, making the previous style favored by Katherine of Aragon seem outdated and stuffy.
  3. The bicorne hat (with the brim pinned up on either side) is typically associated with Napoleon Bonaparte, although it was worn by most French military officers at the time.
  4. It is said that Abraham Lincoln kept letters in his stovepipe hat while he was president.
  5. The illustrations from the first edition of Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll depict Alice wearing a ribbon or headband holding her hair back off her face.  The term “alice band” is still used to refer to the style in some places.
  6. Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and other Wild Westerners were among the first to wear the Stetson – now known as a cowboy hat.  But apparently, contrary to the movies, the bowler was actually the most popular style worn on the frontier.
  7. Jackie Kennedy’s signature pillbox hats were designed for her by Oleg Cassini, and were essential to her clean-lined style while she was First Lady.

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