Monday 6 April 2020

A bippity boppity hat

 

I have long wondered what a bippity boppity hat looks like - haven’t we all?


But I was thinking, if ever there was a time to start wearing one it must be now, with the current widespread despair about our uncut / unstyled hair.  I jest, but still...

I’m imagining it could have feathers, or sequins perhaps (to go with the satin tat).  Would it pull down over the ears? Or have a wide brim?  


I found some women's hats from the early 1900s that strike me as being very bippity boppity.



Bowie’s memorable lyric also puts me in mind of a character from a James Thurber children’s book, The 13 Clocks.  I have a copy tucked away; it’s a great fairy story, but a detail which has stayed with me most vividly is that a central character, known as the Golux, wears an “indescribable hat”.  

“He wore an indescribable hat, his eyes were wide and astonished, as if everything were happening for the first time, and he had a dark, describable beard…” 

Is that not brilliant?

Thurber was blind by the time he wrote The 13 Clocks and could not add his own images as he'd done in the past, so he got his friend, Marc Simont, to illustrate it for him.  He then asked Simont to describe all his illustrations; Simont was unable to describe the hat.  Thurber was, quite rightly, satisfied.


The Golux in his indescribable hat, as illustrated by Marc Simont


My copy is illustrated equally charmingly by Ronald Searle

Anyway, when it comes to some hats I would like to wear to disguise lockdown hair, I love the look of some from the 1920s.


If you're male (although not necessarily), maybe one of these would take your fancy?

Or something more flamboyant perhaps?  It would make our daily exercise allowances so much more interesting.


Berets are a favourite of mine and I actually have a few, but I seldom wear them.  If only I could appear this cute


but I reckon the reality is more like this nowadays...wot with me glasses an' that.

Wrong on so many levels

I may be going slightly mad.


Take care x

21 comments:

  1. Love all these hats C - Thanks Mr Bowie for providing the inspiration. The indescribable hat is certainly just that but I kind of like it. Although it's now April I'm still in my woollen bobble hat I'm afraid so all very boring. Wish I could stride out in one of the more elaborate affairs above - Just wouldn't look right with my "coat of many toggles" though.

    Thanks for the lesson in millinery - No Ascot this year either though so yet another profession that's a bit redundant at the moment.

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    1. I love all those hats too, but if only I could pull them off (or on!) - and have a suitable outfit too. I'm smitten with the bottom photo from the 1900s, she looks quite contemporary, although I imagine had difficulty getting through doorways... And I wouldn't want any birds to have been harmed in the making of her headwear but I suspect they were sadly.

      Yes there will be a few milliners missing their Ascot commissions this year. Another reason to bring back hat fashion for lockdown life!

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  2. I always fancied myself in a Bogart style trilby, but my head is generally too big for most hats and my hair grows too fast.

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    1. Big head, big brain, isn't that what they say?! Maybe there's a market for an elasticated trilby with some holes in like a watering-can rose...

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  3. Plus, they make my head itch.

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    1. ...ah but following on from my reply above that won't solve the itch problem...

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  4. Ha ha - by the time we get out of lockdown, sounds as if Rol will look like Bowie in the picture at the top of the page. He'll need the trilby.

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  5. Head-wear and facial hair - two things I've always liked in theory, but just can't pull off. I've documented the struggles of my misguided moustache years in the past, but I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned my vintage American fedora? It's not bippity boppity, but it's very cool - except when perched on my head. I feel a post coming on.

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    1. I remember the moustache tales but I don't think we've had the pleasure of seeing your vintage fedora... would love to know more!
      I'm the same though, I hanker for hats for some reason but very few suit me, even less so as I get older. Maybe I should try growing facial hair instead...?! No, best not go there, I am a woman of a certain age after all :-(

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  6. Queen Bitch just might be my favorite Bowie song from that era. It was used quite well to close Wes Anderson's film the Life Aquatic. I was in an airport in the summer of '93 when an older American male was trying to strike up a conversation with a younger British female. His opener... "Ah, you're English. Do you like Benny Hill?" The look on her face is forever in my memory. Hopefully, they didn't have to sit next to each other on the plane.

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    1. Yes, such a great song, a sign of things to come I think too, it would have fitted right in on the Ziggy album.
      Love your Benny Hill reference, haha! I was always surprised to find he was even known in other countries - or perhaps he just typified a certain kind of Britishness, aargh...

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  7. I think The Swede wears bippity boppity hats.

    I have a crumpled (v crumpled) Fedora which used to come out on trips to Devon. I'll show you photos if I can find them.

    Lovely post, as always. J

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    1. Ah thanks John - and I'd be very happy to see your hat pics, The Swede's recent photo was lovely.
      Am trying to keep to bippity boppity posts right now!

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    2. Panama. Not Fedora. V crumpled Panama.

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    3. Summer 2010 - Kingsbridge, Devon. Me & James.

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    4. Thanks John, it suits you! And so carefree...

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  8. With the popularity of Poldark I was disappointed the tri corner hat did not make a sartorial revival

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    Replies
    1. Now that is something I would truly love to see!
      Nice to see you again too Furtheron, hope all okay.

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  9. I picture the Cat in the Hat as wearing a bippity boppity hat.

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