THA 2011 Dinner Photos - Santos Photography

Hats are such a timeless accessory! This photo could be from any decade.

Xiao Li Tan, from Stetson shows us the freshest, coolest way for the ladies to rock a cowboy hat

Tracey Tooker, Tracey Tooker Hats

Toastmaster Don Rongione, Bollman Hat Company

Three Timeless Hat Shapes that never go out the style Modeled by Gary Rosenthal, Shawn Ferry and John Rosenthal

Theresa Gardner and Andrew Bleecher, San Diego Hat

Theresa Gardner and Andrew Bleecher, San Diego Hat Co. present Courtney Bush, San Diego Hat Co, with the David Leiberman Award

The Milliner's Guild

The impeccable Mr. John Jones of MR Magazine wears a Boater to the Boathouse

The Headwear Association Announces FIT Scholarship

The fantastic ladies of The Millinery Guild make a stylish entrance

The fabulously charmin Lauren Parker from Accessories Magazine

The Fabulous FIT Guests

The 2011 Headwear Hall of Fame Trophy

THA President, Courtney Bush Addresses the dinner guests

THA President, Courtney Bush

Shelly Lipton, Lipton Publicity; Lauren Parker, Accessories Magazine

Shawn Ferry, President, Bernie Utz Hats and Winner of the 2011 THA Retailer of the Year

Paul Mahon, Outdoor Cap Co

Monika Fina Millinery - a simply divine design

Monica Stebbins, Monika Fine Millinery

Matt and Julie Randsell, Matt's Hats

Kathy Anderson, Hats by Kat

Karen Alberg Grossman of MR Magazine, such a stunning smile from our style maven

Karen Alberg Grossman and Xiao Li Tan

Jill Hammer, Principal, HammerINK & THA Publicist; Don Rongione, President & CEO Bollman Hat Company

Junney Seth, Hats in the Belfry; Joe Caparosa, Dorfman-Pacific

Jenny Seth and Ryan Seth, Hats in the Belfry

Jeffrey Sun, Foremost; Todd Gardner, Dorfman-Pacific; Tracey Tooker, Tracey Tooker Hats

Jeffrey Sun from Foremost came all the way from Nantung, Jiangsu China to join us at the dinner

Jack Lambert, Dorfman-Pacific; Mark Craley, Bollman Hat Company

Headwear Industry Leaders Don Rongione, President & CEO Bollman Hat Company and Doug Highsmith, President & CEO Dorfman-Pacific

Gentlemen and Dandies Ouigi Theodore and Gabriel Garcia from the Brooklyn Circus

Gary Rosenthal presents David Broner, Broneer Hat & Glove, with Ben Rosenthal recognizing leadership and excellence in the Headwear Industry

FIT in the HOUSE

Everyone in HATS!

Ed Donegan, Hatco Presents Shawn Ferry, Bernie Utz Hats with the Retailer of the Year Award

Don Rongione, President & CEO Bollman Hat Company

Denise Woods, F&M Hat Company

Dawn Duncan and FIT Foundation Announce The Headwear Association FIT Scholarship

Dawn Duncan and FIT Foundation Announce The Headwear Asociation FIT Scholarship with Mr. S.S. Baik, Young An Hat Company

David Broner, Broner Hat & Glove, Winner of the Ben Rosenthal award recognizing leadership and excellence in the Headwear Industry

Courtney Bush THA President with Mark Schaffel, F&M Hat Co; Doug Highsmith, Dorfman-Pacific; Paul Mahan, Outdoor Cap Co.

Charlotte Dyslin and Angus Macleod from Bollman Hat Company

Bob Broner and David Broner, Broner Hat & Glove with the Ben Rosenthal Award

Bernard Grossman, F&M Hats and his lovely wife Lenore

Archi Burkel, The Hat Ladies; Beth Charleston and Jill Hammer of HammerINK

Archie Burkel, The Hat Ladies

Archie Burkel, The Hat Ladies of Charleston

A stunning day at the Central Park Boathouse enjoyed by Gary Rosenthal of Stetson

Johnny Depp Voted Hat Person of the Year

The votes are in! And Johnny Depp was voted Hat Person of the Year.

The results were based on a global poll on The Headwear Association’s website where people could cast a vote for their favorite hat wearing celeb. With 38 percent of the vote, Johnny Depp beat out Gwen Stefani (17%), Hugh Jackman (16%), Justin Timberlake(13%), Kate Hudson (9%) and Nicole Ritchie (7%) to win this stylish award.

Depp is rarely seen without a hat, and favors wide brim fedoras. The shape is enjoying quite a heyday right now; similar styles can be seen on Mad Men, The Adjustment Bureau and wider brimmed fedoras were seen on the Paris, Milan and NY runways.

Congratulations, Johnny!! You wear it oh so well.

Hat Person of the Year -- VOTING Extended

Exciting news! The Headwear Association has extended the voting for Hat Person of the Year.

The winner will be announced on 3/10/2011.

Stay tuned for details -- we will be announcing the winner in conjunction with launching a series of contests and hat giveaways on The Headwear Association website and FACEBOOK pages.

Become a fan of The Headwear Association on FACEBOOK today so you don't miss out on any of the upcoming giveaways!

To vote: http://www.theheadwearassociation.org

Vote Now for Hat Person of the Year

Voting begins today for The Headwear Association's "Hat Person of the Year."

This year's nominees are: Johnny Depp, Hugh Jackman, Justin Timberlake, Gwen Stefani, Kate Hudson and Nicole Richie.

The winner will be announced on National Hat Day, January 15.

To vote: www.theheadwearassociation.org

Today - Headwear for the Homeless event

December 10 -- To help disadvantaged people keep warm this winter, The Headwear Association will donate today thousands of hats to homeless shelters and non-profits nationwide.

Participants in this year's campaign includes:

Artex Knitting Mills, Bollman Hats, Dorfman-Pacific, Grace Hats, Modern Millinery, NES Enterprises, Outdoor Cap, Philadelphia Rapid Transit, San Diego Hat and Swan Hats.

Hats and Literature: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Illustration by "Phiz" from the 1950 Modern Library Edition of David Copperfield. Top Hats were de rigour in 19th Century England.




Readers of the HAT BLOG and other Information and Resources pages at VillageHatShop.com [see the top navigation bar] know that headwear’s role, as symbol and metaphor, in art and literature is vast, stretching back to the beginning of humankind. One finds never-ending examples of hats being used to convey nuanced – or not so nuanced – ideas. Here are a few examples plucked from my latest read, Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield.



Mr. Dick is a masterfully wrought character. The only comparable example in fiction that comes to mind is Chauncey Gardiner portrayed by Peter Sellers in the movie Being There. Dickens: "This veneration Mr. Dick extended to the Doctor, whom he thought the most subtle and accomplished philosopher of any age. It was long before Mr. Dick ever spoke to him otherwise than bareheaded; and even when he and the Doctor had struck up quite a friendship, and would walk together by the hour, on that side of the courtyard which was known as the Doctor’s Walk, Mr. Dick would pull off his hat at intervals to show his respect for wisdom and knowledge."



David Copperfield was madly in love with Dora. He was obsessed with everything associated with her. Copperfield: "I never saw such curls – how could I, for there never were such curls! – as those she shook out to hide her blushes. As to the straw hat and blue ribbons which was on the top of the curls, if I could only have hung it up in my room in Buckingham Street, what a priceless possession it would have been!" He references Dora’s hat and her curls again on the pages that follow. I do agree that the relationship of a women’s hat and her hair can be very attractive. As a hat merchant, and someone who has been asked his opinion on matters of this kind hundreds of times, I have often stated words to the effect, and to many a woman, "I like the way that hat works with your hair." Women in hats were alluring in Dicken’s day, and for many men, they still are.



In a most dramatic passage, Mr. Peggotty decides to commit his life to finding his niece who ran off with David’s friend, "I’m a-going to seek her, fur and wide." As he finishes a poignant soliloquy and is ready to depart, this description follows: "He said this solemnly, bareheaded; then putting on his hat, he went down the stairs and away." That simple act of putting on a hat and leaving had a kind of literary power in the 19th Century, you see it in pre-1960 films as well, but is virtually gone in this day and age. [Note the slightly different uses of bareheadedness in the Mr. Dick passage and in this one. Mr. Dick refrained from wearing a hat as deference to power, much the same as a king’s subject would remove his hat in the company of the king. Mr. Peggotty’s deference was to the solemnity of his discourse and implied an oath (to a power even greater than a king).]



The book is full of references to hats. Here’s my last example, a slight variation of a metaphor that is in my collection of Hat Metaphors and Similes. Mrs. Crupp, Davids’ landlady in London, is eccentric, nutty in fact. One of her paranoid preoccupations is her "… constitutional objection to spies, intruders, and informers. She named no names, she said—let them the cap fitted wear it . . ."



Sleuthing for hats in literature is quite simple; references are easy to find. Social status, religious observance, challenge to the enemy, temperament, emotion, financial means, geographic identity, historical period, hobbies and interests, and much more is illuminated by the use of hats. As R. Turner Wilcox in her forward to the classic The Mode in Hats and Headdress writes, "No part of costume is so universally important as the headdress, which is worn even when body garments are dispensed with, as the appearance of the aborigines abundantly proves." With the force of expression that hats intrinsically carry, it is no wonder why artists and writers use them copiously.



Fred Belinsky

VillageHatShop.com

Headwear Hall of Fame Announces New Inductees

The Headwear Association today announced the newest inductees to the Headwear Hall of Fame. The famous hat-wearing winners are:

• Aretha Franklin
• Cameron Diaz
• Carlos Santana
• Gwen Stefani
• Ne-Yo
• Payne Stewart

Winners will be formally inducted into The Headwear Hall of Fame during The Headwear Association's annual gala dinner on Thursday, March 17, 2011 at the Central Park Boathouse in New York City.