Princess Sets Fashion In Hats

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32034, 8 July 1969, Page 3

Princess Sets Fashion In Hats

(By

NORMAN HARTNELL)

For years, the hat has been thought of as the poor relative of the fash- ' ion trade. Couturiers have regarded it with ; suspicion, believing it draws attention away from their dresses; and hairdressers have resented their creations being covered by a cloud of lace and felt flowers. Milliners have, by and large, become resigned to the fact that they are catering for older women rather than the young swingers. Now, all of a sudden, this seems to be changing—and Princess Anne has had a lot to do with it In the last few months she has become the young champion of the hat trade.

She has a seemingly endless collection which includes newsboy caps, tall crowned hats, berets, pillboxes and cheeky bowlers. She wears them all with flair and they flatter her face tremendously.

It took someone like the trendy princess to convince the younger generation that hats are not the exclusive province of aunties and dowagers, but can be pretty too. Certainly the message seems to be getting across. As I strolled round the enclosures of , Royal Ascot the other day (my pink shirt getting its usual icy stares) I saw some smashing hats on the heads of some very young women. Of course there was the

usually flamboyant nonsense which has become an Ascot tradition, but most of the hats were stylish, restrained, and a good complement to the clothes they accompanied. Ahd that is as it should be. GENERAL RULE

I am not one of those couturiers who hates hats. 1 have designed hats myself. Accessories, as I never tire of saying, are as important ae clothes. A hat should complete an elegant outfit. Princess Anne realised this early in her fashion development.

Tradition once forced members of the Royal Family to wear flowery hats on the back of the head so that the face was unobscured, and although this general rule still applies, it is by no means as rigid &s it was. Simone Mirman, whose hats have been worn oh Royal heads for a long time, and whose creations for the Queen and Princess Margaret are admired the world over, is a close friend of mine.

SIMPLE STYLES She agrees that the new interest being shown by young people in hats is exciting, and she is selling three times as many hats to young people this seasdh as she did last year. They prefer simple styles, and are apparently realising that a hat can give some individuality to their outfit. Without one, there is a danger they may look just like everybody else. I am often asked to give a hat for somp big charity function or other, and in the past, the winner was invariably a woman of 30 to 35. Now it is usually a girl of 18 to 20. If a young girl won a hat previously, she probably gave it to .her mother or aunt. Now, she claims it for herself.

In my observation, it seems that young people are now swinging away from fancy styles in clothes, to something simple, something that logically needs a hat to complete it

TWIGGY’S CULT Certainly young women seem to know exactly what they want from a hat. I have even heard them advising

their mothers on styles. Obviously Princess Anne’s choice in millinery influences young people, but I think the trend for wearing hats was there anyhow. It goes without saying that a charming hat adds the finishing touch to a woman’s

appearance, but keeps it simple, like the hippy beret in melusine worn low down over one ear by Jean Shrimpton, or the headband which Twiggy made into a cult last year.

Princess Anne’s “pillbox hat” is selling like hot cakes (remember, Jackie Kennedy Onassis used to love the style a few years ago). Young people will not buy a “dressy hat,” and I do not blame them. Nor do they want something which will go with only one outfit. They want a hat which looks as good with trousers as it does with a dress. The latest hat craze ts for the stetson, which was recently shown in a newer version and called a "unisex”—or “him and her"—hat This “unisex” hat trend was started by George Malyard, a very creative milliner whom I once had the pleasure of employing in my salon.

In New York, women are enjoying a fashion for sew-

ing daisies on to anything in sightr-including hats. I saw an American client wearing a homburg to which she had stitched an appliqued daisy. She was with a friend wearing an Anthony Eden hat in crushed lime straw. It certainly took a bit of getting used to. In Rome, it is skull caps, turbans, and helmets, and suits with built-in matching scarves. For Autumn and winter, the Italians predict a boom in black fox hats pulled down over the ears. Cardinals’ hats are suddenly being sold in Rome chain stores; so are, those shallowdomed hats with oval brims, designed to be worn over headscarves.

AU these may not be to your taste, but at least they are a change from feathers and felt that have dominated the hat business for so long. The photograph shows two appealing hat fashions, the leather beret (left) and the feminine version of the trilby.