Continuing with the tour of my home and in honor of March Hat Attack, I’m featuring the Hat Room. This beloved room has been around since the late eighties, when we moved into our house. Sometimes it feels like the continuation of my hat shop, which I owned in the early 1980s. However, my hat collection is not for sale. It exists for its beauty and art, my pleasure and self-entertainment, and it’s constantly changing.
For the most part, I display my headwear by color, which makes it easier to find the perfect piece for an ensemble that I’m composing. As you can see, I carefully layer and stack my hats with the utmost of care, so as to maintain the shape of each beauty.
The hats currently on display are my fall/winter collection. Twice yearly (spring and fall) I change out the hat room. The hat boxes in the room contain the spring/summer collection, which will be arranged on the racks and surfaces soon.
Having a hat collection makes having a hat box collection mandatory. All of the hat boxes in the hat room are vintage, which is by design. I have other hat boxes that store many a chapeau, but they reside in shelves in closets and other spaces in my home. I am always on the look-out for vintage hat boxes, wherever I travel. Estate sales have been my most fruitful source of discovery.
In the above photo I’m holding a vintage pink Schiaparelli. I have a number of designer hats, but that isn’t the reason that I fall in love with a chapeau. If I adore it and if it’s affordable, it has a perch in the hat room. At this point I have to really love it and it has to speak to me loudly for that perch. As you can see, space is limited.
The hat in the photo above was discovered in a vintage shop in Miami. It’s felt, but it looks like spring. I’m planning my seasonal transition ensemble as we speak. Watch this space!
Fedora. Beret. Boater. Derby. Fascinator. Cocktail. Bowler. Bucket. Cloche. Fez. Homberg. Porkpie. Top Hat. Pillbox. Breton. Turban. Panama. Picture Hat. Toque. Tricorne. And more.
Sometimes I feel like I’m tending a hat garden! Today my gardening outfit is a vintage Bill Blass black lace over nude cocktail dress. My hat is estate sale vintage. And my pointy toe heels are consignment shop. Scintillating sustainability is my daily mantra. What’s yours?
Photos by Nicole Perez
What an amazing collection. I love to try hats on but, although most of them look good on me, I never buy them.
OMG That dress is to die for!! Such style!!
Oh I am sooo green with envy right now!!! A hat room! Would love to be able to do that someday. But I’ll have to be content with drooling over yours. Can hardly wait for the seasonal change!
*My cat Coco Kitteh has destroyed yet another vintage box! She is as obsessed with them as I am with their contents. Luckily not too much damage to the hats themselves….. except for that black netting. Oh well at least she didn’t touch the flowers!
Forgot to comment on the scarf wall. GORGEOUS! You keep rocking those colors eco-warrior woman!
Your Hat Room is amazing, I love hats and buy them occasionally, usually wear them on the day and then they are Forgotten about in bags.
I’m more a scarf person, I have dozens iof them and wear them every day, I Think they make an outfit. would love a scarf room.
Your dress is fabulous.
I love your blog, your wardrobe, but this outfit tops them all. Thank you for sharing!
I am agog with the wonder that is the Hat Room! I used to have a very similar hat to your Schiaparelli (picture here: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K9fzQRlfJIo/VGFrNOD4bGI/AAAAAAAAjR8/Qryfv4CW5m0/s1600/007.JPG) – that same funny “mushroom” shape.
I wear a mix of fedoras frequently, for practical use (rain!), and have a very small collection (compared to you) of vintage and handmade hats and fascinators.
Love your wonderful Bill Blass dress! Will you show us your spring/summer collection after you’ve swapped over, Judith? Pretty please? 🙂
Wow!! What an incredible hat collection you have Judith I am quite envious and drooling over the many leopard print lovelies. To think of all the hats I gave away over the years, because I felt they were “out of fashion”. I guess it took becoming older (50+) and wiser to truly appreciate beauty in all its forms, regardless of what current fashion trends dictate.
I did keep a few special ones that I couldn’t part with, thinking I might wear them again “one day”. Unfortunately “one day” came & went. To think of all the missed opportunities and events, Discovering your blog and incredible passion you have for both vintage & modern hats has inspired me to take more fashion risks, regarding headwear. I am even wearing pretty silk headscarfs again-not just on bad hair days (ha ha). Thank you for sharing your personal space and beautiful hat room with all of us. Take care, K
What a joy to finally see pictures of your hat room! What a collection you have!
You continue to look like such a stylish crone, you are an inspiration to all mature women!
In love & Friendship, Janet
YOU ARE SUCH A DELIGHT IN MY WORLD…………..
I have been HOME BOUND Most of the time for the last four years………………
Have a silly problem of losing my vision and feeling faint!NO DOCTORS have figured me out!
Think I have found a good team now………..today is DAY 15 NO EPISODES as I call them!
I think I should send you a few of my hats!MOST of the VINTAGE ones are too small for me so I use them on GARDEN STATUES which reside in the HOUSE!
KEEP ON KEEPING ON!!!!
XX
I love everything in the hat garden— your mantra is perfect!!! I just co-hosted an Alice in Wonderland Tea Party where we made Mad Hatter hats from paper bags!!!!
Judith I love your hat room!
I have wonderful memories of playing in your hat room the first time I visited you in Denver. If I would have had time I would have tried them ALL on. It is a magical place!
What a wonderful collection. You wear hats so well, Judith and I love the idea of ‘Scintillating Sustainability’.