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Email to FriendColorful and creative, millinery was a hit at Queen's Tea Party
Many of the hats carried stories of their own. Some had been transported by boat, train and plane thousands of miles, while others were purchased just days before the festive event. The hat worn by Lynn Alexander, spouse of Bishop J. Neil Alexander, was chosen for her by an online vote of Episcopalians in Atlanta.
"I've seen so many beautiful hats around the diocese," she said in an interview after her return. "I thought, instead of buying a new one, why not borrow one?" So she asked women to search closets and attics for one they thought suitable and send a photo to place on the diocesan website, then asked people to vote for the one she should wear when she met the Queen.
Fortunately, Episcopalians in the Diocese of Atlanta have good taste and passed over the frivolous ones, including a raccoon-tail hat that was one of the more than two dozen entered in the competition billed as "Lynn's Hat Contest." The entry fee was $25 a hat, and all proceeds benefited U.N. Millennium Development Goal projects in Atlanta's companion diocese, Honduras.
Dodged the ostentatious
In the end, the hat chosen for the bishop's wife was submitted by Frances Lamar Martin, one of several African-American women at St. Paul's Episcopal Church who entered the contest. "It was so much fun for all of us," she said. "And it sounded like it was going to be fun for the bishop's wife, too. She was going to see the queen … going to have tea. We made a big ‘to-do' out of it," she said, admitting that she tried not to choose anything too ostentatious from her wide collection of church hats.
"The one that was chosen, it was a sharp hat, two or three years old," she said. "[Lynn] wore it with the same kind of dress I would have worn. It was a great hat for going to tea." It was "frivolous fun for a great cause," said Lamar Martin, who develops supportive housing in Atlanta for the mentally ill.
The wife of Atlanta's newest assistant bishop, Keith Whitmore, who recently retired as diocesan bishop of Eau Claire, said she took four hats to Lambeth. But the hat she wore at the palace tea party was one she purchased just days before. "It was brand new with no history to it," she explained. "My husband and I were walking down the streets of York [while she was looking for a hat for him for protection from the sun] when he stopped in front of a millinery shop, saw this hat, and he really insisted I should buy it."
Will she wear it again in Atlanta? "Of course," she replied. "I have already been asked if I am wearing it to the [Kentucky] Derby!"
'Plethora of splendid chapeaux'
Donna Scarfe, wife of Bishop Alan Scarfe in the Diocese of Iowa, must have felt right at home amidst all the hats. She is a professional milliner, owner of Fyne Hats by Felicity, creating ladies' hats for Renaissance and Victorian costumes and contemporary fashion.
"One of the biggest expectations was going to the Queen's tea at Buckingham Palace," she said. "The day dawned with a plethora of splendid chapeaux. From the native headdress worn by the Burmese women and some African ladies to simple straw hats and beautiful millinery creations proudly worn by those unaccustomed to such finery, there was much to see."
Scarfe said she took three hats with her -- one for the opening service at Canterbury Cathedral, one for the last Sunday service and, of course, one to match her dress jacket to wear for the queen. "I was in seventh heaven looking at all the hats at the garden tea party. Some ladies did not wear a hat at all, but instead had a lovely little thing called a ‘fascinator' that they put on their head. It was either on a headband with a small hat to one side, like a '40s cocktail hat, or it was an image of feathers and sinamay [straw] flowers delightfully arranged."
This fashion has caught on with the "younger set," who can escape wearing a hat and at the same time satisfy propriety, she said. "I loved going into the department stores just to look at their hats and wished we had more of the same here. I did buy some fascinators," she admitted, "and I hope to make some of my own in the near future. Perhaps a trend can be started for elegance!"
A video on Lynn's hat contest is available here.
More on Donna Scarfe's millinery is available here.
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