Fraught with danger, in a way unmatched by any other article of clothing, the hat can be both fashion boon and sartorial enemy. Let us help you to pick a winner.
It’s not just knowing how to put an outfit together, it’s the finishing touches that make all the difference. A great ensemble, for instance can succeed or fail purely on the choice of headwear. This is especially true for your boy dolls. In real life, men need to take care of the pitfalls of hat-wearing and these lessons can be well-translated into useful tips for dressing our dolls
In my own case it may be something about the way my face is put together that makes people hoot with laughter whenever I put anything on my head. I’m not talking about a bucket or a flowerpot – I do mean conventional headgear. Some folks can pull it off, whereas I have the knack of turning any hat into a comedy routine.
Ben Okri, the Nigerian poet and novelist, who is considered to be one of the foremost African authors and has been compared favorably with writers such as Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez, recently appeared on TV during an awards ceremony sporting a beret, for instance. This made me wonder if the beret is the new fashion direction for men, or whether you need to be an eminent author and Booker Prize winner to carry it off.
To be frank, and at the risk of causing offence to beret-wearers everywhere, particularly readers in France, this look has never been a particular winner for me. Perhaps a little too much of a caricature – whether artist or breton-clad onion seller on a man, and just too french poodle on a woman. These reservations, however, fly out of the window when considering hats for dolls. The main hat function, of protection against the elements, is quite redundant for our plastic friends, nor do we need to worry about looking either ridiculous or a trifle ‘oh-la-la’ in the street. For dolls I make a beret exception, and I’m sure D.A.E.’s Vivian would agree.
But the thing with hats, including berets, is to make sure they are chosen to complement the outfit. The true test of a successful hat is whether the whole look falls apart without it. Remove the hat and does it look like something is missing? Like a hat? As opposed to ‘what were you thinking?’ with the wrong headwear choice. Would Jackie Kennedy have made the same impact without her signature pillbox hat? I don’t think so.
You don’t even need to take the haute couture milliner route. Even woolly winter hats are laudable when worn with thick toasty coats and sweaters, perhaps less so with fine taffeta ballgowns or swimwear. Although if it makes a statement, it’s worth a try.
“If you want to get ahead, get a hat” a 1940s advertising slogan in the UK, when most men still wore hats – caps, trilbys or bowlers – by Dunn & Co, hatmakers.
Another pet hate (on humans) is the all-singing, all-dancing attention-seeking hat. In real life these are acceptable only at weddings and costume balls. In doll life they are acceptable for virtually any occasion, as the ladies in the row below will attest. These four dames are very likely just doing the weekly shopping or having afternoon tea in Dollville, but it doesn’t stop them from choosing their finest millinery for the event, however mundane. What’s the point of escapism if we can’t indulge our hat fantasies a little?
The other thing about hats is how great they are at evoking a mood or an era. If you want to get the roaring twenties down, you couldn’t do better than adding a cloche hat to the mix. Similarly it’s hard to imagine the full forties hemline of Dior’s New Look without the balance of a nice wide picture hat.
In the mood for a foreign trip? Or just getting to grips with a Dolls of the World collection? It’s surprising how many traditional costumes depend on the final flourish of headwear. Think of Holland, Spain, France, China, Nigeria, Mexico … in fact almost anywhere you can bring to mind – none would look right without the relevant hat.
As with so many things in life it’s all about scale, but in this case it’s also about color, texture and appropriateness. No wonder it is so easy to get it wrong. In the case of dolls we should use the same sensibility as when choosing mini furniture. It really does have to be the right scale or it will, at best, throw the whole thing off kilter. At worst the look will be hilarious as the poor doll’s head disappears into an oversized trilby, or has the effect of setting a pea on a melon.
Likewise, you may feel that the top hat, the fedora, or the panama is ideal for your male doll – and quite honestly he’s more likely to get away with one of these flamboyant hats than most men would, unless they were playing an actor-manager in a period drama. But you should still consider how appropriate they are in terms of the overall outfit. In the wise words of Bobby Ewing, a man should never be “all hat and no cattle”.
You could do worse than study the very proper head etiquette of Her Majesty the Queen. From the stunning Hardy Amies creations of her early reign, to the most recent Jubilee outings, QEII rarely gets it wrong. Sadly the same can’t be said of the younger members of the British royal family. Yes, I’m looking at you Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, and the unfortunate fascinators you wore for Kate and Will’s wedding. Philip Treacy may be one of the UK’s best milliners, but was he having a laugh with those toppers?
Another area best avoided is ‘kidult’ territory. If it looks cute on the under-fives there’s a reason for that and it’s best left in the Hello Kitty store. This applies to both dolls and people. Nothing destroys the insouciance of this year’s vinyl top model more than an overdose of cute. If it’s pink, fluffy and is reminiscent of a Disney character, please don’t put it on your doll’s head, unless it’s a baby doll, and under no circumstances should you wear it yourself.
This article previously appeared in Fashion Doll Quarterly magazine.
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