Kicking Off Fall With 90-Degrees Weather

The heat is pretty relentless here in Texas.

But as I was closing my bedroom window this morning bracing for another hot day, I saw leaves fall from my neighbor’s tree. It’s the first sign that cooler temperatures are on its way. Until the icy weather shows up here, and before we need to hunker down with some serious insulated head gear, we have plenty of choices for stylish headwear sans snow and blizzard.

My first hat for Fall is Daisy Bell, a wool felt piece I made late last year but never finished using one of my vintage blocks from Paris. It’s technically a cloche, but it has a cute fold down crease in the front and a round pork pie crown. There’s so many wonderful features on this hat and it looks terrific from many angles. It’s really more like a Mary Poppins kind of hat to me. I added some vintage silk Gerber daisies to bring out the whimsical in her. She’s incredibly fun to wear, and I just love hat blocks with multiple personalities. The most daring designs are really found in my vintage blocks. I guess hat designers had to be more creative back in the day. Now that hats are no longer mandatory, hat designs lean toward the classic here in the US. I see this in my own social media responses. I get more love on classic garden hats, pillboxes, and cloches rather than my dramatic crowns and free-form designs. Australian race fashions really take the cake for innovation. It’s so popular over there that Australian milliners are really leading the pack on design and new materials.