Is Dutchess Kate Changing The Conversation About Hats?

Are hats making a comeback?  I mean, aside from the annual women's lunch at the wonderful New York Conservatory in Central Park, an annual affair now referred to as the "Hat Luncheon," where women wear wonderful concoctions on their head.

And, of course, the Ascot races.

And, I guess hats are a big deal in Louisville at the Kentucky Derby.

What about the rest of the time?  Are hats cool again? 

Hedda Hopper, the famous gossip columnist who hobnobbed with the best of them in the early 1900's, is supposed to have once said "I can wear a hat or take it off, but either way it's a conversation." 

I'm not sure if she meant that her putting on or taking off her hat was itself a subject of importance to others, or whether she meant that every hat is somehow a conversation piece.  It's true.  A hat can look entirely different, depending on the wearer.  Frank Sinatra is supposed to have said that "angles are attitudes" and it was clear from the way he angled his hat, he had attitude and plenty of it.

Do you see hats simply as covering to keep out the cold?  Or the sun?  Or are they an expression of your personal style?  I read recently that baseball caps are suddenly becoming an object of fashion.  Tell that to the guys I see every day on the subway in New York.  Whether they wear it with the bill in the front, back, or sideways, they all make statements with their hats. 

Kate Middleton's embrace of hats may be part of the impetus behind new-found enthusiasm for wearing something on one's head that is worthy of conversation.  Apparently, no matter what she puts on her head, it is copied quickly by milliners in God knows where and quickly becomes a "must-have" item among many women.  I think I prefer the kind of hats that say not who you would like to look like, but how you wish to express your own personality. 

Me?  I like to wear men's hats.  Not sure what that says but I like their look and invariably, as I walk down the street wearing one of my men's hats, someone--almost always a man--says "Nice hat."  Makes my day.