If you've long had 1st-7th August pencilled in your diary you'll know that London Hat Week is an annual celebration of milliners and millinery, showcasing the creative industries that help to keep our capital a-head. You may even have participated in the workshops, attended the Suppliers Fair, visited the pop-up shop, dropped into the exhibition, taken advantage of the masterclasses or listened to the podcasts. But the crescendo of the event is always the London Hat Walk, and 2022 was no exception.
Dress Code: Headwear eye-catching enough to stop traffic!
They gathered just before noon outside Morley College on Westminster Bridge Road. This had also been the venue for this year's official London Hat Week Exhibition, held inside Morley Gallery where a curated selection of work from established milliners and emerging talent included contributions from industry associations around the world including the British Hat Guild, the Dutch Hat Association, the Norwegian Hat Association, the Spanish Hat Association and The Worshipful Company of Feltmakers. Essentially it was some rooms brimming of hats.
The gathering must have been all of 50 strong, because what better to do on a summer Sunday than parade around the streets of Lambeth and Southwark in your favourite headgear. There were floral twirls and feathery fascinators. There were bold blue brims and ostentatious pink ribbons. There were pert pillboxes and frothy bonnets. There were hats Margaret Thatcher would have adored and hats resembling red frisbees. There were trilbies unless they were fedoras because I'm no expert on identification. There were hats at jaunty angles and hats so frail they almost weren't there. There were hats you'd wear to Ascot and hats you wouldn't have risked. There was one striped top hat with a windmill on a stick. There was something green and yellow resembling a cushioned snake which looked like it was being worn for a bet. There was a man in what looked like a red velour baseball cap with gold trim and a woman in what looked like a Napoleonic bicorne hat made out of a hessian sack. There was a lady with a bijou red creation wearing a t-shirt saying 'Wear More Hats'. And there was a photographer on hand to capture the moment because every hat is a statement and nobody who wears one is a shrinking violet.
Photos taken, the party set off on their 90 minute stroll. Their first stop was outside Lambeth North tube station, where tourists in matching baseball caps gawped and a bald man carrying shopping bags did a sudden double-take. I'm not sure what those further around the circuit made of the display, social media does not record. But I do know the entourage returned to Morley College at the end of the London Hat Walk to celebrate at the London Hat Week Wrap Party with light refreshments and a glass of bubbles. You're too late to join in this year, but if your creative ego has been tickled then expect plenty of opportunities to engage and celebrate hats together during London Hat Week next August, so best get millining now.
