When discussing the history of women’s hats in the United States, the designer and author Steven Stolman was reminded of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘company’, in which Joanne Wryly asks: “Does anyone still wear a hat?”
Hats come and go in women’s fashion, but there is one place where you can always find them. Mr. Stolman is well aware of this. He was in Kentucky to help Groot -Britain, the First Lady of the State, to get ready for the 151st running of the Kentucky Derby, which she attended in a dress he designed and select a hat he helped.
No American sporting event can correspond to the picturesque splendor of the derby, and Mr. Stolman, who is no stranger to such things, who has put on a top hat to attend the Royal Ascot races from Groot -Britain, had many opinions about what made a good hat (and much more about fascinators and extensive heads are completely separate things).
“I think the whole goal should be that you see a beautiful lady wearing a hat,” he said, “instead of a beautiful hat worn by a lady.”
In the case of Mrs. Beshear that meant that Mr. Stolman would combine a pink and white silk check-shirt and skirt from his Steven Stolman for J. McLaughlin collection with a hand-blocked white Sinamay hat from Gigi Burris that was cut with twisted goose springs.
When he looked ahead at the series of hats that would be seen in the crowd at Churchill Downs on Saturday, Mr Stolman expressed some horror that more than a few women would probably choose badly because they no longer had the help of trained milliners and sellers while shopping.
“Buying a hat online is really risky things because there is no opportunity to see if it even fits,” he said, adding that “real millinery is made to fit the wearer, and that makes the difference in the world.”
Heavy rain during the day complicated things, but the crowd of 147,406, as always, ran the range from extreme to modest. And almost every woman (and many men) still managed to wear a hat, because some traditions are worth keeping, regardless of the weather.
