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"Crowning Southern Ladies &
Gentlemen... Hatmaking Survives as Fashion Evolves" It's a rainy, windy March morning in downtown New Orleans. Pedestrians are sparse and those who brave the elements have to dance across the puddles. But inside the narrow well-stocked walls of 120 St. Charles Avenue Sam Meyer is doing what he's always done – outfitting men with that last bastion of Southern gentlemanliness – hats. Several blocks away, deep into the French Quarter, Nicole LeBlanc is hard at work trying to meet the upcoming Easter deadline. At Fleur de Paris, 523 Royal Street, head milliner LeBlanc is fighting the good fight to keep Southern millinery as a part of the fashion culture. As the sales staff (all wearing hats by LeBlanc) is attending to women selecting their Easter ensembles, LeBlanc is putting the finishing touches on an elegant straw hat created to match a just-sold beaded Kathrine Baumann purse. Why are Meyer, whose family owns Meyer the Hatter, and LeBlanc working so hard at their craft? Possibly because what was once a staple of every well-dressed man or woman's wardrobe is now more of a luxury. Instead of feeling incomplete without a chapeaux, many people feel almost self-conscious in headwear. Those who still regularly wear hats comprise a determined, albeit minority segment of the American population. Still, there are enough Southern women to whom hats are a necessity to make Nicole's job as demanding as it is artistic. "Southern women are all about being ladies," LeBlanc said. "There's a quote that says a lady can be dressed without a hat, but she cannot be dressed up without a hat. Southern women resist any kind of defeminization. My customers are from all over, and some of my best customers are not from the South. But they equate hats with the South, and New Orleans with a certain femininity." Still, without that loyal, determined core of hat-wearing women, regardless of their geography, would the word "milliner" fade from the fashion lexicon? And why have hats become such unsung fashion parts? LeBlanc believes it has everything to do with the swinging 60s. First, Vatican II modernized the Catholic Church, no longer requiring women to cover their heads in church. Second, according to LeBlanc, was First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, who favored bouffant hairstyles in place of hats, and when she did don headwear, it was generally of the "pillbox" variety, rather than the elaborately designed creations American women had traditionally worn. Meanwhile, men followed the cultural transition to a more casual look, where even a business suit would not demand headwear. Not to worry, according to Meyer. "Listen, there are over 200 million people in this country, right? Some of them are going to wear hats. Not everybody goes fishing, but they sell a lot of fishing tackle." Business philosophy or simple truth? In fact, Meyer the Hatter is moving merchandise, especially Kangol caps and English driving caps, the store's biggest seller since 1936. But on this Tuesday morning, the German visitors filling the shop are out for band hats. Among the elegant Stetsons, the Bailey straws, the Biltmore felts and the Borsalino dress hats, hundreds of men rely on Meyer to cover their heads while playing in bands. The yellowing sign in the store does not exaggerate; "New Orleans grew up under a hat from Meyer the Hatter." Almost 1000 miles away, Elizabeth Hogue, a corporate health attorney whose husband is a longtime Meyer customer, is ready to leave her home under a hat from Nicole LeBlanc. Hogue says wearing a hat "transforms me. I feel like a queen with my crown on. It has to do with an outlook--a little sassy, confident, feeling beautiful, special. Openness to headwear is wonderful, and not just hats. I watch women from Africa wrap their heads, and I even look at street hats, Kangol caps that are popular now, and I think the whole spectrum of headwear makes men and women feel wonderful." So says the woman who has collected 150 hats over three decades. Perhaps that is how the women parishioners at the Greater St. Stephens Full Gospel Baptist Church must feel as they file in for Sunday services in New Orleans. Michael Cunningham, who photographed dozens of black women for Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats (Doubleday, 2000), learned that hats are "so much more than just fashion. "These women wear hats to make a statement, telling the world that they've been blessed by God, that they have 'arrived', that throughout life's tragedies and disappointments, failures and upsets, that they can still hold their heads up high on Sunday morning, sometimes under very heavy hats; that they take it seriously. The hat is not an accessory. It is very important and close and deep." |
