Mary Holmes on the Emotional History of Hats

Mary Holmes is Professor Emerita of Art at the
University of California at Santa Cruz. We spent
many afternoons at Mary's home talking to her
about the significance of the headdress to human
beings, and of the emotional meaning that they
have carried in different cultures over different
times. The following is an excerpt of a longer
interview that will be published later.

BH: One of the things that got us thinking that we can do this project is that no matter
how different from one another people are, they all have the same basic reaction to wearing
a balloon hat. I've made balloon hats at fancy corporate parties and at homeless shelters,
and people react in very similar ways to receiving and wearing them. They get happy and relaxed.


Well, the relationship between people and hats is ancient and extraordinary. Throughout the
whole of history, wherever you find human beings you'll find an interest in some form of headdress.
"Dressing the head" is satisfying to the wearer, and it also makes a statement to everyone else.
And people feel crowned - separated, elevated, and enlarged. It elevates people above ordinary
living, and raises them up into something quite extraordinary. That's what crowns do, and the
balloon hat is a kind of crown. The balloons augment the face and create a new sense of presence. 
And people feel the ancient connection in that, the dignity even with the humor, because headdresses
have always elevated people. It's a delight to see that. 

BH:  It does seem that often when people put on special headdress they feel transformed into someone
or something else. Whether it is a shaman who wears a mask for a ritual or a woman who puts on a new
hat to look more alluring, it is as if the headdress becomes an extension of something that naturally
is not there.

Wearing a hat has important social significance. What we wear affirms our values. Our clothes make
statements that our bodies might contradict if we took our clothes off. A headdress effectively separates
and identifies you. It is a mark of social distinction, and says who you are. It is impossible to dress
neutrally. Wearing a hat reaffirms your choice of how you want to appear to the world.

The Ancient Egyptians shaved their heads and wore wigs, giving hair the same function and meaning as a hat.
This practice began because of the problem of cleanliness and lice - the best way to prevent lice is to
shave your head. But over time the wigs began to represent a different level of society. The poor didn't
wear wigs, they just had to wear their own hair. What you wore on your head became an issue of power.

The military has always been a place where the headdress is an extremely important status indicator. The
military is about the system, not the individual.  It is indifferent to the individual. When you enter the
army, they shave your head, give you new clothes, and call you by a new name. They are not thinking about
the person, but about the rank and what the rank means. The uniform and the headdress are symbols of rank,
which is necessary for the shared recognition of authority.

And of course, no one in the military would ever wear a headdress that was above or below their own rank.
It would mean that they thought they were something that they weren't, and it would be seen as a kind of
forgery. It would undermine the system and they would be severely punished.

BH: That makes sense, but it is still amazing to think that something as
simple as wearing a hat could be seen as so dangerous to an entire power
structure.

The head has always been a battlefield. We think of ourselves as living
in our head. Our most important acts aren't performed by our hands or our
legs. We think and speak with our head. So the head becomes sacred. It has
meaning. Which is why there came to be so much meaning attached to hair
and headdresses, to what they look like. And it has enough meaning that
itıs worth fighting about.

BH: It seems also that men and women wear headdresses for different reasons.
Historically women have worn hats to show beauty or modesty, while for men
a hat was a sign of political or social aspiration.Also, in our travels we
noticed that is some places - like in China, for instance, only the women
would wear balloon hats. The men thought it wasn't serious enough. But in
India the men went crazy for the hats, while the women weren't allowed to
wear them.

In different times and different cultures, women have either been forced to wear headdresses, or
completely excluded from wearing them. For instancethe Islamic veil has the practical function of not
letting people see woman's face. It's a very strong concept that the sight of a woman's face or hair,
like hearing a woman singing, is so sexually arousing that it will jeopardize the likelihood of her
remaining faithful. Like the binding of the feet in China, it ensures women's dependency because it
restricts them, by keeping them from doing certain things.


In old Russia, most women didn't wear hats. They wore the scarf, the babushka, over their head. Only
women in the upper upper classes had hats. If a young woman had a hat, she felt like she had made it
into the world. She either had very rich parents or a rich protector. In America in the 30s and 40s
most women wore hats.  Women used to buy hats frequently as an emotional release. If you were in a
blue mood, or if you were celebrating something wonderful, you would go buy a hat. It was an elaborate
and widespread ritual.
  

And there was a whole set of manners and customs involved in wearing hats. As late as the 50s and 60s,
if a man saw a woman or child, he tipped his hat. It was unheard of him not to. And of course if a
worker went to talk to his boss, he would have to take his hat off. That is why people say "He came to
him hat in hand." You take off your hat in recognition of the greater person. You need to take your hat
off. He doesn't.

BH:  It's so bizarre and fascinating that the hat is just one medium, but through out the world it always
looks different, is made of different materials, means something different, and has different rules and
customs surrounding it.

One of the great human things is our pleasure in symbols and symbolic action. We are symbol-making
creatures. So for us everything takes on meaning. It is our great human gift and it makes our lives
larger, richer, and more interesting. Whether we know it or not, we are acting symbolically whenever we
add something to our physical nakedness, whether it's make-up, a tattoo, jewelry, or a headdress. The
desire to wear a headdress is something which is so deep that it's an astounding thing that we have
allowed ourselves to go so far away from hats in just 40 or 50 years. 

BH:  So what does it say that nowadays so many people in America don't wear hats anymore? Between the
1950's and the 1960's there seemed to be a sudden and almost complete disappearance of hatsŠ

It's my conviction that the disappearance of hats is willful - it's to stop the categorization of people.
It's part of democratization - a rejection of the feeling that a hat separates one out, which it does,
particularly if it is a very fine and expensive hat. It's part of the great democratic urge - nobody wears
hats, because nobody is special. The same thing has happened to picture frames. Up until the Second World
War all good pictures were framed in wide heavy frames that were beautifully carved, handsomely made and
gilded. That's what a frame was. Now a frame is as small and simple as possible, nothing but a strip. As
with hats, there's a sense that there's something dishonest about a frame. Why? Because a good frame makes
whatever you put in it look better. The same is true of a hat. Hats set off the face, just like a picture
within a frame. A hat makes anybody look more dignified, more respectable. They just do. And now that's gone,
absolutely just plain gone. Yet people, I know, long for headdresses.

I have great faith that hats will come back, because they have been important to humans for millennia. And
the balloon hats give people, at least momentarily, a return of that experience of dressing the head. I
think that's why it evokes that bubbly, giggly, happy response. People feel that at last they have the
recognition they deserve.