She Who Wears A Hat

I walked into a department store last Friday dressed rather regularly in a pair of black jeans which have been aptly named the “tomboy jeans” by Blk Dnm’s Johan Lindeberg, worn with a white button down blouse, a grey jacket and red, sparkly-ass ballet-style short heels. I was wearing a wide brim hat and holding a red bag, which in hindsight looked grossly coordinated with my shoes. You live and you learn, right?

“How are you today?” an earnestly polite salesman asked while I thumbed through a rack of navy blue blouses.

“Well, thank you,” I responded, to which said man retorted, “It shows.”

The pithy exchange was endearing. It felt like one of those great New York moments that make living here worth it by simple virtue of receiving confirmation that even when considering the tiny things, like an unassuming spectator who completely gets your aura, there’s nowhere like it.

The thing is, why — or how — did my over-well-ming sense of eudaemonia show? I wasn’t particularly put together save for the aforementioned sparkly-ass shoes. At this point, I’d had lunch so my blouse was stained in four places and if I’m going to get really honest with you, I hadn’t showered in like, five days. (Blog research! You’ll see!)

I surmised that it had to be the hat. It had been presenting nuanced challenges all day (do I take it off when I get on the subway and if so, where do I put it? Are these people looking at me because I appear so damn affected? Now that I’m seated indoors and at a meeting, what do I do with the hat?) but this correspondence seemed like the most blaring indication that to wear a hat is not just to make a statement, but to yell that you are the type of woman who knows how to pull off a hat. And so, by the power vested in your indispensable swag, you will.

This point has only been fine-tuned by a perspective that Charlotte offered on hat-wearing and the popular stereotype that when you wear one, you look like an asshole. (Asshole in both senses, meaning that you are probably a dick but also a moron.) She said that the reason hat-wearers probably appear as they do is because wearing the topper takes a lot of confidence. Enough, at least, to seriously believe that everyone else has got it wrong, but you’ve got it right. In the spirit of emulating that confidence in order to possibly accrue some of our own, you’ll find three looks styled with the very hat I wore last week.

In the first instance, I’m wearing the same grey Hanro jumpsuit I slept in the night before, which I have said on multiple occasions that I love because it makes me feel like I am in the fetal position. This look is meant to encapsulate that Friday morning oh-my-goodness-it’s-not-the-weekend-yet?-What-do-you-mean-I-have-to-get-up-and-ready-for-work pre-day coffee run. You throw a denim jacket (mine is Acne) on over your pajamas and a trench coat (mine is by Mina & Olya) on over that and because you haven’t washed your hair in a week (blog research! You’ll see!) you effectively need a hat. The sneakers (Converse x Missoni though Free Knits should do) provide a nice contrast when considering how otherwise “formal” a wide brimmed hat can be, and the Olympia Le-Tan clutch is essentially just foreshadowing scenario #2.

You probably know by now that this blog is underscored by a deep, insatiable hankering to tango with Sarkozy so this scenario demonstrates how to wear a hat when you’re trying to look impossibly French. That’s why my facial expression denotes a sense of perpetual ugh-ness. Get it? Got it? Good. The cropped white blouse is from ASOS, the high waist jeans are by Blk Dnm, the grey jacket is from the Isabel Marant pour H&M collab-o-lab and the shoes are last season’s Marant – hold the H, hold the M.

In a final scenario that may or may not get you ready for resort, it’s important to remember that because the preferred headgear makes such a statement you either have to let it speak by muting out its surroundings, or give it reason to want to get louder. Here, it’s paired with a balloon sleeved off-the-shoulder blouse by Vika Gazinskaya and Theyskens’ Theory wide leg pants. Sometimes it’s okay to, instead of speak for your look, let it speak for you. Knaaamean?

End scene.