Elsie and I went to Strand Hatters. It is a very nice little shop, although the music was Whitney Housten and not in keeping with the image of a classy hatter AT ALL. It must have been the personal selection of the shop assistant, because he knew all the words — I do like to hear people singing happily and unselfconsciously in public.
The problem with this shop is, half the hats are too high up to see them. Let alone reach them yourself and try them on. If you are shy about hassling shop assistants when you don't know what you want, it's awkward. If they had a look book to browse, like in bridal shops, that would be handy. Or even better, if they let customers climb rolling ladders like in the old private libraries in movies. However, there were many Panama hats within reach, which I tried on. My size is a large. It's technically a men's hat shop, hats that women can also wear but not special pretty hats for women, so their sizes go up two XXL quite happily.
Anyway, the panama hats are lovely. High grade, apparently the higher the grade number the finer the weave and they sell fine weave hats. Different variations of cream colour, ribbon, and brim. I like one where the brim tilts up at the back, down at the front, and has a black ribbon. It was over $250, so I didn't buy it. Some where cheaper, but not in the ball park of a hat that I could buy without going away and justifying it to myself.
Then we went to DJs to look at their hats. We only found ladies hats, it didn't occur to me that they might have men's hats somewhere, which is a shame, because they might have had panama hats to compare. As it was, not one single ladies hat fit me. Thanks for nothing, department store. Way to make women feel depressed about ANOTHER part of their body being too big. Bar me from the world of cloches.
So I will buy a hat from Strand, if I have to. I have a couple of options to chase up first, but if that much money has to be spent to get a hat that fits, so be it.
On an aside, Elsie started pointing out hats wherever we went after that. There are a few around and I never noticed them.
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Oh I *hate* that the hats at DJs never fit me. Never, ever, ever. Only the stretchy ones, and really there's only so many stretchy hats one needs, especially when one can crochet her own.
ReplyDeleteGoodness it's no wonder I have trouble:
ReplyDeleteThis website (http://www.hatsinthebelfry.com/hatsize.html) says of the one size fits most hats 'in general they will fit a head with a circumference of 21 1/2"- 22 1/4" '. I just measured my head and it's almost 24 inches!!
Well that explains a lot. 54 - 56.5cm is well short of my 59cm.
ReplyDeleteThe curse of the giant green head strikes us all. Much surprise on the part of people who didn't believe my head was that big when we measured and it was 64cm.
ReplyDeleteI would love to wear a pretty ladies cloth hat, I usually wear mens cloth hat, does the job and it fits and folds into bags.