Three Different Hats, Two Separate Occasions

The woman in the cool fedora was dining at Pauline's restaurant in Chicago's Andersonville neighborhood about two weeks. She looked top-notch from head to toe from that hat down to her cropped pants and stiletto shoes. Her boyfriend/partner looked equally stylish in his retro two-tone black and white shirt. I should have had her pose with the two macaws that were visiting the restaurant with their owner, who had them parked atop a shopping cart near his patio table!

The second woman was at the Midwest Vintage Clothing, Jewelry, Textile Show and Sale in Elgin. She was trying on both of these vintage chapeaux when I spied her. "I have to get a picture of you!" I said as pulled out my Kodak EasyShare 530 digital camera. Click, click, click. The black and green hat for the Kentucky Derby. She takes that and puts on the feathered version which would look at home on Audrey Hepburn's head. Three more snaps. "I should be really be at my booth," this woman, apparently a vendor, says as she guiltily peers in the mirror. She quickly walks away. "But I think I'm going to get these." I hope she did, because she looked great in both. She certainly had the make-up for these two toppers - you simply cannot forgo lipstick, mascara, and a big swoosh of blush when you don these what I call "stop sign" hats. In other words, people will stop their cars to look at you in these hats even if there's no big red STOP sign in sight.