Club involved in global hat uprising

For the last few years, as part of London Hat Week—a week of seminars, workshops and fairs celebrating and supplying millinery—the organisers have included a London Hat Walk, a parade of titfer-toters along a route in the capital, usually with a good dose of NSC types in attendance. This time they had managed to coordinate with likeminded hat-fanatics around the world to create a World Hat Walk, in which similar parades took place on the same day in no fewer than 21 cities across the globe: see www.londonhatweek.com for details. (Needless to say the walks couldn’t be exactly synchronised, as for some cities—such as the four in Australia—the timing of the London walk would have been in the middle of the night.)

This year we gathered in the churchyard of St James’s Piccadilly, before mobilising down Piccadilly, cutting through Piccadilly Arcade and lingering fondly around the statue of Beau Brummell (who carries a hat in his right hand). From there we continued along Jermyn Street, turned left along St James’s Street, on to Pall Mall, past St James Palace and on to The Mall, finally gathering on the steps of the Victoria Monument in front of Buckingham Palace for a few photos. Our journey back to the church took a slightly different route, through St James’s Square and down Duke of York Street. The crypt of the church had been hosting some other events as part of London Hat Week.

I had worried that the combination of rail strikes that weekend and a forecast of high winds (the hat wearer’s worst enemy) would put people off from coming, but in fact it turned out to be the best-attended hat walk yet, with some 200–250 tile-toters taking part. Among these I would say that the NSC contingent were distinct in their all-over vintage aesthetic, while others wore a hat with conventional contemporary casual wear, and others still sported head-to-toe iridescent eccentricity. There were some sculptural numbers representing buildings, a volcanic island, an Eighties-themed assembly of cassette tapes and Rubik’s cubes, a knitted rat and more. There is always a group of ladies in purple with red hats: I’m not sure what organisation they represent. There were also a number of what seemed like press photographers there.

Congratulations to Liz Waldy, Georgina Abbott and the team for another successful event, and another step on the journey towards a global hat-based utopia.

You can see many more photos from the day on our Flickr account at https://www.flickr.com/photos/sheridanclub/albums/72177720316097704.