Women aren’t wearing hats. So?

April 9, 2012 By

Yesterday morning at our beautiful Easter service, I looked across the aisle of our completely packed church and saw one of the young women at church wearing a fantastic hat. And I think Becky may have been the only woman wearing a hat. Immediately I felt a pang of regret that I hadn’t remembered to put my outfit together with a hat.

So I nodded my head when I came across the Washington Post‘s front page story this weekend, headlined:

Church ladies and their big, bold hats: A fading tradition

Some might wonder whether such a light fashion story deserves front-page coverage. (In fact, some of the comments to the piece question the news decision considering all the wars and problems going on in the world right now.) Done right, I think it definitely could.

From the headline to the last word, church plays a role in this story. But it’s a surprisingly one-dimensional role.

Elaine Saunders stepped into Bachrach’s Millinery in Northwest Washington one late winter day in 1953, and there it was, calling her name: a pale fuchsia straw hat with an upturned brim and matching rosebuds circling the crown.

“It’s a Mr. John,” Saunders, now 77, recalls without explanation, certain the designer’s name alone says this was no ordinary hat.

She paid $5 to put it on layaway and made regular installments until she’d covered the $35 cost. When she finally clutched the gold braided handle of the pink floral hatbox and strutted out of the shop, she knew that this final touch to her pale pink Easter suit would place her among the best-dressed young ladies at Zion Baptist Church. And that would be no small feat, since proper church ladies back then all wore hats — their finest, of course, on Easter.

For generations, church sanctuaries across the nation on Sunday mornings, especially in black churches and especially on Easter, transformed into a collage of hats: straw ones, felt ones, velvet ones, every shape, size and color, with bows, jewels and feathers, reaching for the heavens.

But anyone walking into today’s services expecting to see a nonstop parade of women making fashion statements on their heads will be sorely disappointed. Many daughters and granddaughters of the women who made bold and flashy hats synonymous with the black church have not carried on the tradition.

We learn all sorts of things about the millinery business and the way that some mothers weren’t able to pass the tradition onto their children. I find all of this fascinating. My own mother has a freakishly large head (kidding, mom!) so she could never find hats to fit. But she loved seeing me in hats and would buy them for me frequently. I wore them throughout childhood and into my 20s. I’m not entirely sure why I don’t wear them as much any more.

The story is full of people talking about wearing hats at church and how the practice is fading. “Regular church ladies, black and white,” we’re told, made up about half of one hat shop’s business (the rest was for celebrities).

The decline, though, is only chalked up to a change in style. This is undoubtedly true but I wonder if, for a front-page story where one has the time to treat the topic seriously, we should get a bit more analysis.

For our purposes, I wonder if we’re seeing a religion ghost. Is there something about a change in worship or a change in doctrine that affects this changed practice?

I have been in some churches — black and white — where head coverings are a pious option for the women. I have been in some churches — black and white — where worship has become significantly less formal and much more trendy over the years. Does that play a role? Are there denominational differences in the church hat culture? Am I wrong to think of this as more of a Protestant issue than a Catholic one?

The story is fine but I would have loved to hear some other voices. Maybe from pastors about what the change in hat styles signifies to them. Certainly there are others out there who have thought about the significance — theological and otherwise — of this change in how women dress for worship. For an article focused on church dress, it might not have hurt to have a bit more depth.

Image of a church hat from Shutterstock.

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Filed Under: Baptists, Godbeat, Pop Culture, Worship
  • http://www.acupuncturebrooklyn.com Karen V

    Despite my own freakishly large head, I have always enjoyed hats and am glad to live in a borough full of church ladies, particularly African-American church ladies who tend to have thick hair, so larger hats. But my experience in wearing them to worship brings up ghosts that you don’t address.

    Today wearing a hat indoors seems pretentious or rude. I’ve worn hats to Easter services, but it seems a bit much so have often taken them off when indoors or part way through the service. But also, a hat seemed a somewhat pretentious barrier between me and God. Better to pray as who I am.

    Now that I am Jewish but not orthodox, hats have a different set of problems. I see few hats except for the occasional kippa on women in services, and any hats in winter tend to come off with the coats. I read it as not wanting to be mistaken for orthodox, among women who are quite observant in other ways. As Israeli women who may cover their heads begin attending, their hat wearing falls off in deference to local custom. This is a stark contrast to my Hasidic friends who may wear pillboxes over their wigs in public (lest anyone think their wigs are real hair) and turbans at home.

    So the “Just as I Am” option, the Church isn’t a fashion show option and the I’m affiliated with the non-hat wearers tribe option.

  • Laura

    Nice post,
    I think there is more to be addressed in this post than the article does because not only do I think it is a style preference in fassion, I think it’s also a worship or theological change as you pointed out. I’m Catholic. The Vail, or any head-covering at Mass is meant to illustrate that women are in a sacred place and are showing proper respect to God by covering their hair. Though it isn’t required anymore, I do wear a vail at Mass. I don’t see many people doing that anymore either and I wish more women would, but I’m curious, did the lessening of hat wearing in Protestant churches occur around the same time as the loss of the vail in Catholic churches, and are the two linked in anyway? Do women in Protestant churches cover their hair for similar reasons as some Catholic women do, or is it more of a fassion thing? I’m really curious so anyone with an answer I’d love to hear it. I for one love hats, but I can rarely find any I’d like to wear to church. I’ve found some very pretty vails though.

  • Dill

    I am Catholic, and know less about Protestant tradition than Catholic. I would say that if it is a Protestant issue more than a Catholic issue, it’s because the Catholics dealt with more a few decades ago than they do now. Catholic women used to be required to wear a head covering in church, specified most prominenty in the 1917 Code of Canon Law. After Vatican II, this practice mostly stopped, despite the fact that Vatican II apparently didn’t comment on the issue at all. The 1983 Code of Canon Law did not feature the requirement. You can check out canon lawyer Edward N. Peters’ take on the issue here: http://www.canonlaw.info/2006/09/vatican-ii-canon-1262-and-chapel-veils.html

  • Martha

    Yes, I agree that for Catholic women, hat-wearing (and mantillas) fell off sharply after Vatican II.

    My mother owned three hats which she wore only in church and rotated week to week; she hated anything on her head (unless she had to wear it, for example, if it was raining) and cheerfully dumped her hats the minute religious custom changed.

  • Julia

    In the 50s, Catholic girls wore tams, berets and beanies to Mass before school started (they could be shoved into pockets and book bags) and real hats on Sunday. Adult women always wore hats on Sundays. Then in high school, girls switched to little lace things on their head like doilies or larger mantillas (even easier to stash away during school). This started becoming OK for Sunday Mass, too, as the bouffant hair-do came into style with Jackie Kennedy. She was famous for her pillbox had that perched on top of her bouffant hair, but she would wear Mantillas, too, which influenced adult women to switch. Jackie probably wore veils and mantillas at her Catholic girls’ boarding school.

    Then, after Vatican II people started wearing more casual clothing and gradually the veils and Mantillas disappeared. For Catholics I think it just went together with the changing Mass, with guitars, folk music, English and less formalism. Odd because just when women to starting to have poker straight hair, they dropped the veils that were so good at protecting elaborate hair-dos.

    What also disappeared at the same times was gloves. We wore white gloves to church, shopping, on dates and all kinds of places that would surprise young women today. That’s one thing Mad Men gets right, now and then – the women employees in the elevator pulling on their little white gloves as they leave work for the day.

  • Julia

    Odd because just when women to starting to have poker straight hair, they dropped the veils that were so good at protecting elaborate hair-dos.

    That should have said: Odd because just when women were starting to have poker straight hair they ironed, they dropped the veils & mantillas that were so good at protecting elaborate hair-dos, but didn’t go back to hats on Sunday.

  • Julia

    Jackie in her mantilla – 1962. The beginning of the end.

    http://mantillawithme.blogspot.com/2010/10/jacqueline-kennedy-on-her-way-to-mass.html

  • SouthCoast

    One problem with just possessing hats these days, particularly larger hats, is the near-impossibility of finding good, sturdy, LARGE hat boxes in which to store them. Also, other than costume-y type hats or casual hats, I’ve not seen a millener’s or decent hat section in decades.

  • http://sarahboylewebber.blogspot.com/ Sarah Webber

    Mollie, you have two young children. Just getting to church on Easter morning is an adventure, so I think we can forgive you for not remembering special headgear for yourself.

  • Sarah Pulliam Bailey

    Or as RNS found, there could be an economic factor.
    http://blog.christianitytoday.com/images/2009/04/easter-hats-for-a-recession.html

    CT published a piece on clothing in church that was highly discussed: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/januaryweb-only/clothingmatters.html
    There’s definitely a more explicit religion angle to explore.

    Also, where does one find a cute hat these days? Except for the straw beach hats, I hardly see them in stores anymore (or maybe I just don’t notice them).

  • Hector

    I go to a church that’s majority Black, when I’m at home in Boston (largely Caribbean-American immigrants). I’d say a lot of the Black women wear hats to church, not so much the white women.

  • Katy

    I like wearing hats to church, or in general. A few factors are holding me back, though:
    1) Finding hats. Burlington Coat Factory has some, but the hats I own that I love are from antique stores.
    2) As Karen V said, it feels a bit much. No one else last Easter wore a hat to church, and I felt really ostentatious. Sometimes when I get all dressed up in my old-fashioned clothes (hat, gloves, undergarment support besides just a bra) I feel more like I’m in costume then just dressing nice.
    3) I have little kids (4 under 5), so there’s that.

    I didn’t wear one this Easter because I couldn’t find one to my satisfaction.

    I’ve seen conservative Reformed Baptists, KJV Fundamentalists, and I know Tridentine Catholics and conservative LCMS Lutherans who all wear mantillas or hats. The Reformed and Lutherans were certain families, not the whole churches.

  • Katy

    Oh, and black ladies will often wear hats, but only middle aged or elderly, no? I can’t say I see many twenty-somethings wearing hats….

  • Chris Atwood

    You missed the other side, which is that sometimes men and boys ARE wearing hats–baseball caps, for example–in church. Preview to an article on this here: http://www.ctlibrary.com/le/1998/spring/8l2054.html

    It all sprang out of 1 Corinthians 11:4-5

    “Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.”

    The usual interpretation: men uncover their heads in church, women cover them.

    The religious ghost here is: what happened that this passage once seemed very obvious and is now seen as the opposite of obvious, in fact an obstacle to godliness.

    I have had very conservative Reformed sticklers for Bible verses tell me that such a rule (men must not wear hats in church, women must wear them) is legalistic and external. If so, what has changed in piety that in 1800, very passionate Reformed sticklers for Christian freedom not see it at all in that way.

    I personally have no answer to this question and I think this story is far, far too deep and too significant to be fully explored in journalism.

    Funny also, judging by the names, I’m the only man commenting on this so far.

  • Christal

    I have to weigh in on this because Im a Milliner. And church aside, women are and do still wear hats. There tends to be a common believe that because its not in your closet that its not in style. Right now the trends for the fall “Hats”. All of the designers are showing women in hats this year. I cringe when I read things like this becuse it just shows that people live in a bubble especially when it comes to fashion. When I started millinery over twenty years ago, I could not find suppliers. Now I can find them all over, and there is a growing population of young miliners out there. I hope that we can find that church isnt the only place to wear them. I also hope that men and women start embracing hats not only as fashion but as protection from the suns harsh rays. As the planet gets older you will see more people running for the shade a good hat can offer.

  • Bill

    Growing up in the 50s, I remember women always wearing hats and gloves, and not only to church. The special hats came out for Sunday Mass, and the really special hats were worn on Easter. I remember the large hatboxes which took up so much room on the shelf in my mother’s tiny closet. I recall a lot of mantillas and veils as well.

    In grammar school, the girls had to wear hats and white gloves far more often than we boys, but we had to have white gloves and wear them to assembly and other school functions. Despite the best efforts of our mothers and the good nuns, the boys’ gloves were always much shabbier than the girls. (Note to self: Take off white gloves before shinnying up a tree.)

    In our church in rural Texas, women sometimes wear cowboy hats. A few older Anglo women dress to the nines and wear heroic hats worthy of Elizabeth II. Some of the older Mexican women wear long black mantillas and exquisite combs.

    I don’t think the downturn in the economy has much to do with the decrease in hats. The people I grew up with were working class. They lived in small spaces and did not own many clothes. The closets were tiny. But people dressed up more then. Just look at a picture of how the crowd at a 1950s baseball game were dressed.

    I must admit that I’ve always hated suits and ties and stuffy formal wear. I don’t miss them a bit. Still, I smile in admiration at the sight of an elegant, old-fashioned women proudly wearing her Easter bonnet with all the fringe upon it.

  • Katy

    “I cringe when I read things like this becuse it just shows that people live in a bubble especially when it comes to fashion.”

    Christal, I’m very happy the milliner industry is growing. However, I have to ask, where do you live? Because north central Illinois has not gotten the memo. And I’ve been interested in wearing hats since my teens.

  • Lina

    A couple of thoughts.

    1. I don’t know what men wore to the synagogue in Old Testament times, but now men wear kippahs at services. I have often wondered why Paul seemed to reverse the situation.

    2.Women, hats and dresses. In old times, when I grew up, a girl or woman always wore a dress or a skirt and blouse to church. We never wore pants. Maybe hats went out when the pants came in. and yes we wore hats and white gloves.

    Perhaps one has to study the whole change in dress over the last 60 years for women. Men’s dress has stayed basically the same, suit and tie. Women’s pants, skirts, whichever. What are we saying about us?

    It used to be that in articles, men were referred to by their last names and women by their first names. Now we are all referred to by our last names.

  • Suzanne Z.

    Just a short comment as I find myself in a little quandary. I enjoy wearing hats to Mass and often do but it has been difficult to find hats these days except in antique shops. I’ve even asked the black ladies where they get their wonderful hats and am told that they have had their hats for years — no one seems to know a good local resource. But my real issue is: what kind of hat works with a choir robe? I suppose that’s when I should shift to a veil. We did have a few (not many) women who wore hats on Sunday, but not in the choir.

  • Karen W

    Suzanne, the women in our choir wore “chapel caps” for many years. They sure looked like black cloth kippot to me. We stopped when one of our choristers simply could not get the thing to stay pinned in her hair.

  • Will

    There was a popular coffee table book called CROWNS, and even a stage musical derived from it, displaying black ladies’ church hats.

  • sari

    the women in our choir wore “chapel caps” for many years. They sure looked like black cloth kippot to me. We stopped when one of our choristers simply could not get the thing to stay pinned in her hair.

    Velcro. No kidding.

  • Julia

    And who could forget Aretha’s hat at the inauguration. This supposedly signaled a return to hats. Article says that Ted Kennedy wore a fedora. Growing up, all the men wore fedoras.

    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/alltherage/2009/01/inaugural-hat-t.html

  • http://www.susiquetzalli.blogspot.com Maria

    Many people have wondered where they can get hats, or other headcoverings in the other comments. There is a great website called Etsy where you can find many locally hand-made products including hats and a variety of other very stylish headcoverings. I just started making mantillas at my shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/craftymamacita . The nice thing about ordering from individual shop owners is that you can custom order things without extra charge and have things made in the size and color you like. I just started making mantillas a few weeks ago, and I have a hard time keeping them in stock, they are so popular. I had no idea how many people wear mantillas. I also recommend looking at some of the hats available on Etsy. There are some amazingly stylish hats, all made by hand there. You will pay more than something made in China, but the quality is much higher.