About 18,000 people turned out over the weekend for the nation’s premiere steeplechase – a race run annually at James Madison’s Montpelier. The 77th Annual Hunt Club Races featured a new competition this year – one that had nothing to do with horses.
You might think a horse race is about horses, but for millions of women, it’s all about the hat, and this year the organizers of the Montpelier Hunt Races acknowledged that with a hat competition. About 50 women entered, and the winner went home with a gift certificate worth $500.
Meanwhile, three vendors sold hundreds of hats in tents near the track – among them Diana Francis, who makes custom hats at her studio in Lexington. “My inspiration sometimes comes in the middle of the night, and I know it sounds crazy, but I’m up at 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning because I realize that’s just the special treatment a hat needs,” says Francis.
Feathers, fur, flowers and ribbons are always in vogue, but Francis says today’s hats can flexible. “It used to be that hats would be sprayed and made to be very stiff, whereas today they’re much softer, so that you can actually play with a hat and give it the kind of shape that you would like one day and do something different the next. It’s very much a mood thing, wearing a hat.”
Jacki Gill of Ruther Glen agrees, and her wide brimmed pink hat, sprouting feathers, expressed her enchantment with the chapeau. “I don’t know. They feel festive, and you feel fancy when you put them on. You’re just a step above yourself regularly,” she said.
Loraine McConnell, an Orange County Milliner, says this is the heart of hat country. “I think Virginia probably has the most number of steeplechase races and also, the most vineyards on the east coast, with wine festivals, so we have a lot of opportunities to wear hats,”said McConnell.
Her shop, Sequoia Springs, boasts hats are good for your health. “It’s good for our skin, anti-aging, skin cancer are two of the medical reasons that are promoting the fashion.”
— Sandy Hausman
Virginia Public Radio 