Red Hat society
They call it “hattitude,” and it’s spreading.
Women of a certain age, dressed in purple, sporting elaborate red headwear and having a good time in each other’s company. If you want to join them, you’d better be ready to giggle, if not laugh out loud, and not be averse to having a little fun. In fact, you’d better be willing to occasionally get a little silly.
At a gathering dubbed the Red Hat Rendezvous 2007 Thursday at CenterPlace at Mirabeau Point, they were on display – a room filled with brilliant red hats and purple dresses.
They are the ladies of the Red Hat Society, and they are all proudly 50 years of age and older.
“We’re not about a charity, we aren’t about being a service organization,” explained Toni Garman, who holds the title of “Queen Mum” of one Spokane-area group. “We just like to get together and have a little fun. I think women our age need to do things like this for themselves.”
The title of “Queen Mum” is given to each chapter president, a tribute to the beloved Queen Mother to Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, who charmed her country and the world with a love of jaunty hats throughout her 101-year life.
Garman’s group, for example, regularly meets for lunch. Out of a total chapter membership of 31, an average of 21 or 22 ladies grab their red hats and descend on an area restaurant.
“We’re going to stay right at our limit of 31 members,” Garman said. “If we get any larger, it would be awfully hard to find a restaurant to meet where they could accommodate all of us.”
You’ll know them when you see them. These red hats stand out.
First of all, we’re talking about red hats. Rich, lush reds. Bold, look-at-me reds – the kind of reds that make “The Scarlet Pimpernel” look positively retiring by comparison.
And the hats themselves are hardly retiring accents to an ensemble. They are centerpieces of attire.
Red hats with feathers. Red hats with red and purple flowers. Red hats with butterflies, boas and baubles. Red hats with wide brims, snap brims or no brim at all. Red hats with Mirabeau boas. Red hats in the form of berets and cowboy hats with rhinestones. Red hats with tulle aplenty and Red hats in the form of a prim red flower.
They are Red hats that say “Look at me – I may be crazy, but I sure am having fun.”
The groups take their name and attitude from a verse in a Jenny Joseph poem called “Warnings:”
“When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat that doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me.”
But the irony is that the red hats and purple clothes fit these women – and that’s where the “hattitude” comes from.
The organization was founded in 1998 by Sue Ellen Cooper from Fullerton, Calif. In its first decade of existence, the society has grown to boast more than 1.5 million registered members in more than 40,000 chapters in the United States, as well as 30 other countries.
“I started the first chapter in the area in January 2000,” Garman said. “Next year, in 2008, we’re going to have a conference downtown with all the chapters from the Pacific Northwest, and we’re hoping to have more than 700 members there.
“I was at the national conference and there were more than 3,000 ladies in red hats wandering around the Opryland Hotel.”
In the Greater Spokane area, there are more than 40 individual Red Hat Society chapters. There are eight registered groups in Spokane Valley, including one, the Cruisin’ Red Hat Mommas, who all share a love of the jaunty PT Cruiser automobile.
The organization (they prefer to call it a dis-organization) has a Web site (www.redhatsociety.com) where prospective members can look for a local group willing to accept new members or start their own new chapter.
Sprinkled throughout the Thursday gathering of chapters throughout Spokane, Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene, were the occasional pink hat.
“Oh, those are for girls under 50,” Garman explained. “You can’t wear a red hat until you turn 50. Until then, you have to wear a pink hat. But when you turn 50, we have a ceremony for you and you get to graduate.
“You have to have something to look forward to, you know?”