Mad Hatter's Day
[ 10 June 2009 ]
Depending on where you live (& the way you read dates), Mad Hatter’s Day can either be June the 10th or October the 6th. Well, June 10th is today, so I say we celebrate it now! (There’s no reason why we can’t go back for a repeat performance in October — nor do you really need an excuse to wear a magnificent mantle.)
So what’s the deal with Mad Hatter’s Day? Well, it’s a celebration of the character from Alice In Wonderland, & you can do this in a number of ways, but the easiest thing to do is wear a hat.
Hats hats hats. I love my hats. My love affair with hats began very early, & started with my mother, who always said, “If you want someone to remember you, wear a hat”. (Perhaps I took that a step further with my candy-coloured tresses, hmm?) I adore seeing someone in the street in a hat, & wish more people would wear them. They are so incredibly chic & fabulous.
How can you work a hat into your outfit? Firstly, don’t be intimidated. Remember that your choice of head covering doesn’t have to be a floppy sunhat with a diameter of 100 centimetres (um, 40 inches)! You can go minimal with a beanie or snood (pin something a little sparkly to it to glam it up!), tie a vintage scarf around your noggin or affix an adorned slide to the side of your noodle!
Of course, if you do have a great hat, this is the perfect day to wear it, but don’t feel that you have to go the whole millinery hog. If you work customer service & have a headset on all day, a wonderful bonnet is going to be quite inconvenient. Just work with what you’ve got!
If you don’t have a hat, a plain headband will do in a pinch as you can stick virtually anything to it. A toy car? A gift bow? A firecracker? Use your imagination & be bold! Another place to look is in your boxes of Christmas ornaments — not the baubles, I’m thinking more like fake birds. Often they have clips on the bottom of them, so you can attach them to your hair with ease (but be careful when you take them out because the teeth are usually serrated)!
There are so many headbands around at the moment that you can totally take your pick. I have a huge selection, mostly bought from Forever 21, where they run around $2-$6 apiece. They’re adorned with all sorts of things, from flowers to butterflies to enormous grosgrain bows & they top off an outfit brilliantly. There are also faux-flower hair clips everywhere, which you can just slide into your hair at an angle for super style points.
Channel Isabella Blow (above left). She was known for her outrageous collection of hats & wore them with incredible style. She was quoted as saying that she liked wearing them primarily because they helped keep people away!
When she sported antlers to a lunch with Nicholas Coleridge, he reasonably inquired: “How are you going to eat with those on?” “Nicholas,” she replied to her then boss, “that is of no concern to me whatsoever.”
Here are a few ways that some stylish girls around the globe celebrated Mad Hatter’s Day…
On Mad Hatter’s Day, Isobel Oval took her dachshund (Dahl) for a walk, played the drums for a couple of hours & danced around her bedroom to old Hole records. She finished the day up at her favourite bar, where she sat with her boots up on the counter & kicked several boys asses at darts.
Lauryn met her best friend in a playground for a mad tea-party. They ate peach cobbler, hung upside down from tree branches & whistled show-tunes while swinging as high as they could.
Jane wore small flower hair-clips to a party in her neighbour’s garden. When she got sick of her neighbour’s husband hitting on her, she took off her shoes & sat in the fountain for an hour.
Audrey had intense cabin fever from sitting inside the house painting for 4 days straight — so she got gussied up & walked around the botanic gardens in the rain, while listening to Elliott Smith.
Love letters & feather headdresses,
Tags: aesthetic,
how to,
inspiration,
life Add Gala on Twitter!
i love the outfits! i’m obsessed with headbands & hats, too, so this is be a great day for me! alas, here in germany it is nearly over already (6:30 pm), so i guess i’ll have to wait to october!!
Oh, totally inspiring outfits, as always.
And I had no idea today is Mad Hatter Day! I plan on telling everyone I know, and possibly drinking my tea from a china cup, haha.
HOLY MICKEY MOUSE wheeeeeere can I buy that amazing white dress in your 2nd to last outfits?!
Can we have the product info on all these gorgeous things please? (Aren’t they usually clickable?)
Happy mad hatters day! I’ve always wanted to have a mad hatters tea party, maybe I’ll do it in October :)
oh buggah my birthday is Oct 6th actually and I am MAD about alice in wonderland and already own a costume! wooo hhooooo
I think the outfits you’ve designed in this article are my favourites out of all your Polyvorin’ :)
But it’s 5:30 here now Gala, though I did wear a chunky beret for some of the day I could have done so much better, if only I’d had warning!
ooh! love these little celebrations!
gonna go dress up right now! :DDD
this makes me want to have something to celebrate and dress up for at least once a week!! :P
the clothes are gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!
nice to have something fun to think about on my last day of work! thanks gala.
Your stories remind me of a Francesca Lia Block novel. Lovely.
Lady Julianne — I was going to post it last night but The Dish distracted me! Haha!
I wish I’d known about Mad Hatter’s day when I got dressed this AM!
So… Hats work, headbands work… how about a wig? You can pin things to that, too, and I have a fabulous purple wig…!
I was SO going to bring my floppy-brimmer today, but it slipped my mind. I’ll have to wear it around the house for the enjoyment of my cats, post-work. ;)
Love! Love! Trippy fairytale mad hatter day! Theme! Your blog is unique, witty and fab! Many thank you’s!
I wish I had these girls’ wardrobes!
I’m yet to find a hat which looks fabulous on me. :D
THANKYOU for the inspiration! I’m going to a fancy dress gig… so now I’m either going to be the Mad Hatter or Alice Liddell!
My first time commenting! I’ve been reading your website for years now and I absolutely love it! :)
This post made me so excited! My birthday is on October 6th and I’ve been wondering what I was going to do, now I know! A Mad Hatter tea party! Loved this post :)
Oh Gala!! How fitting that my friend is having a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party for her birthday and I was in a total pickle about what to wear. Not anymore though, thank you darling!
xxx
bisous
Oh the hat bug (madness!)...a few years ago, I went into a frenzy of buying hats, mostly from H&M. I could barely enter a store without buying a new one! Alas that I am stuck at work now, without a chapeau to put on…!
What a wonderful idea Gala! And I was just looking for a reason to celebrate something or other. Now I can plot my day around tea and hats and my new blue hair! Yay! Oh and those out fits are just darling! Thanks again Gala for the inspiration to celebrate at any given time.
long live lewis carrol’s awesomeness. rockin’ my sisters headband with flowers today, haha. sure the headband belongs to a 5 year old, but i’m loving it!
i look horrid in hats, at least i think i do :/ maybe i’m just not as creative as you.
ohh, i don’t know if you saw lady gaga on ellen, but here’s an awesome picture of her and her hat:
img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/ar…
Yay Mad Hatter Day! I have so many great hats I never wear because I’m so fashion lazy. Maybe I’ll be inspired to break one out today!
I love Alice. I’m in the midst of planning a fabulous Wonderland style tea party for all my weird and lovely friends at some point this summer. I can’t wait!
squeeeeeeeee
You wrote it ^^ thanx!!
I went hat shopping today, tried many on… and ended up buying shoes (litterally upside down, I find it appropriate!)
And I was wearing a double red headband that matched my red trousers!!
Happy Mad Hatter’s Day to you all!!!
you guys should all google ladies day at royal ascot, some of the hats these ladies wear to the races are architectural masterpieces!! they are just amazing, i think you’ll love them.
today i will be wearing a headband with pretty feathers and a nice rectangle diamond on it. i love Charlotte Russe accessories. happy mad hatter’s day!
www.stephenjonesmillinery.com/...
http://www.stephenjonesmillinery.com/popup.php?image=SS06/Paris.jpg&caption=Paris
If I’d known! We had an impromptu tea-party on Lewis Carrol’s birthday, a couple of months ago, but we failed on wearing hats then too. I was just given a huge purple velvet peaked squishy hat as well, this would have been the perfect day for its premiere.
Gala, what hat did you wear? I think the pink confection above would suit you! I’m more a shark-hat girl though.
xx
www.stephenjonesmillinery.com/...
Pink link!
This is what I did for Mad Hatters day Gala…
wastemylifepretending.onsugar….
(Your post inspired it! Thanks for the inspiration..!)
I’m in love with all of the items you’ve posted pics of here. They are so fun and fabulous! I’m also a HUGE HUGE fan of Alice in Wonderland and I had no idea it was Mad Hatter’s Day! I absolutely MUST get a hat now.
I’m going to have to wait till october too. or maybe do a delayed celebration tomorrow. i love hats but have big hair so finding one that doesn’t make it puff out the bottom like poodles ears is pretty tricky.i also love alice in wonderland; Lewis Carroll is one of my literary idols. xx
;) I love the Mad Hatter! He’s my most favorite character in Alice In Wonderland!! He makes me very excited! (I was once a Mad Hatter for Halloween) I will make sure to fit a hat in today!
!!!! The dress in Jane’s outfit is possibly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!!!!
I would love to know what you wore to celebrate the occasion. I’m afraid today was a rather schlumpy day for me as I’ve been lolling around the house watching Raiders of the Lost Ark and contemplating a workout (and I shouldn’t even get started on the difficulties of finding a workout that doesn’t aggravate one of my two maddening injuries). But I will definitely make up for my sartorial blah-ness tomorrow night, since I just won front-row concert tickets!!!!! I’ll have to wear a headband or something and pretend it is still June 10 :)
Ahhhhh I completely missed it!! Here in the UK I have only just checked iCiNG for any updates and I was like OH SHIT :’(
I would so have worn a hat! Even better than that, I would have gotten up early in the morning to get my long white socks and attach black bows to them… then I could wear them with my black shoes, short blue dress and a little white apron, with a black bow in my hair!
I LOVE Alive in Wonderland, I would have spent a day devoted to her! Ah well, I shall make a note in my Moleskine (woo!) to celebrate this day on the 6th of October :)
xoxo
Awww, I wish I had seen this earlier this morning! So amazing! I have a birdy headband that would’ve been perfect… I celebrated Lewis Carrol’s Birthday back in January, too. :)
I suppose I’ll have to celebrate late by going to see The Ditty Bops (!!!!!!) live on Monday in St Louis… :D Going vintage dress shopping now to find a true gem…
xoxo!
Sprinkle
PS-Boooo, I don’t think I can afford NYC this summer D: I guess I’ll have to meet you some other year. xoxo
of course Jane’s white dress had to be 1,215.00. Does anyone sew, would this be easy to duplicate?
Happy Mad Hatter day from the white rabbit! xoxo
Brilliant! I have hat fever….although I have found they tend to make people flock TO me ( & try and snatch it to try on themselves ), rather than keep people away from me..
Omg! I had no idea about this and I love it! Def wearing a hat today. I have this outfit too: www.yandy.com/Alice from last Halloween but lost the hat :( Maybe in October…?
I absolutely LOVE the little stories you come up with!! So cute!
my favorite hats right now are flowers. they smell great too. xo
Hi Gala,
These outfits are so gorgeous – what a great idea celebrating Mad-Hatters day …. what about tucking a white rabbit under your arm, or even a white Puppy Purse would do – Haha !!
Love, Donna x
MUSTARD?! Don’t let’s be silly!!
I wish I’d known. It’s 11/6 here now unfortunately. I wore a bow? That might count…
I know why its 10/6 or the 6/10 depending where in the world you are…. They are the numbers on the ticket stuck into the Mad Hatters hat.
The 6th of October is my birthday!!! Yay!
My Mad Hatter Set! =D
www.polyvore.com/happy_mad_hat…
This is weird because I never normally wear a hat but I did yesterday (June 10th is over now for us Brits!) & I didn’t know it was Mad Hatter Day! Cool. It’s tweed and beautifully shaped; my indie boy hat. It was passed on to me a by a friend who said it was too small for his head; it belonged to his grandfather.
Also there is an Alice in Wonderland themed cafe near my house called The Mad Hatter. Afternoon tea a la mode with lavender cupcakes & green kiwi smoothies ;)
Ahh there is far too much fabulous in this post! I’ve never ventured beyond a cute beanie but I’ve always dreamt of going with a Chaplin bowler hat or a Buster Keaton flat-cap ‘do. I love those grandpa caps, if only my head were the right shape!
those outfits are so great :), just sad that i don’t have a hat, only that silly one like naruto’s sleeping hat (an anime)
Oh that is such a cute idea!
Though the 10th was yesterday over here, October 6th is closer to my birthday so I could get an amazing piece of headwear for around then. The outfits and little stories were so beautiful :)
i love the last outfit with the umbrella i dont know what it is about umbrellas that just make me tingle
squeeeal! that skull ring is awesome…i think i can guess who it’s by :P
it reminds me of just how amazingly much i wanted/want one of these rings when i saw it first!!!!
www.flickr.com/photos/galadarl…
mad hatters day is an awesome idea, but here it’s the 11th & getting late at night already :( i’m tired
but i DID do some hula hooping to funky hip hop tunes & also i played games with a whole bunch of awesome kids today at my work :D that (nearly) always makes me pretty happy. we had a tea party in the sandpit, too… so that’s almost perfect for a Mad Hatters day.
I wish I had worn a crazy hat, though.
ps: i have always considered myself a person that just can’t wear hats. except for the right sorta-floppy beanie (i’ve only found one to date and it’s wearing out) which is probably the only hat i’ve ever suited in any way.
it’s really REALLY hard to figure out! I want to be able to wear hats and NOT look super-weird like an alien being or something. And not super-sparkly-dooper-girly (though sparkles ARE awesome!!!)
My Mum said the same, but she stylishly rocked a black beret in her prime and looked great.
I tried the beret thing too, but it just didn’t work on me :P I think my head or at least my hair, is the wrong shape or something haha! Help!?
x sorry about the ranting :S
Gala, FYI: I dunno if it’s just me but every time I come here your sidebar overlaps with your content more and more, making the post hard to read. Just so you know :)
“Nicolas,” she replied, “that is of no concern to me whatsoever.”
PRICELESS
Oh! Mad Hatter Day! How did I not know about this?! I’m still in my pyjamas recovering from last night’s frivolities, but I have a black sequinned beret perched on top of my bed-hair, and am sipping fruit tea from an “only use on special occassions” tea cup, so all is not lost! Thank you for this post! And also, Isabella Blow is one of my all-time fashion heroes, so thanks for that little quote snippet, she truly is wonderful!
Amazing outfits~ especially the last two, but out of all of them,
THE LAST ONE IS [♡love+。☆ヽ(^w^)ﾉ+。☆love♡]
+ the story that goes with it.
It’s something that i’d enjoy myself, since i do tend to spend lengths of time indoors crafting, writing, or designing.
a good stretch, great music, and a nice drink appropriate to the weather is just what’s needed sometimes.
♡leaflet♡
i love the outfits… i really wish i was half as interesting as the people in your stories gala!
the outfits are amazing! I loved the outfit with the white dress in it, I would love to own a dress like that and wear it out. I’m sure all eyes would be on me :) Isabella Blow’s comments was perfect. What a woman!
Man..this makes me even more anxious for Tim Burton’s version of Alice in Wonderland to come out. I think Johnny Depp will be a good Mad Hatter.
I love the dress in the 3rd outfit