Red hot

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Feb 20, 2005 | by CAROL McGRAW THE GAZETTE

The dozens of queen mums who help guide the 73 local chapters of the Red Hat Society are in full regalia.

It is a sight to behold, dressed as they are, way beyond the nines. Their requisite wild red hats and flamboyant purple attire light up a local banquet room like fields of psychedelic poppies.

Red hatters are said to attend weddings and even funerals of members dressed thusly. But on this day, they are supposed to be planning an annual picnic.

Instead, they are cracking jokes, laughing raucously and playing "show and tell." Like giddy schoolgirls, they take turns displaying a dizzying array of Red Hat merchandise they received for Christmas from those who know only too well their lust for all things Red Hat.

Included in the booty is a bouncing Red Hat lady figurine that says: "Shake what your mama gave you!" Another item says "Put your big girl panties on and deal with it!"

These women, all over age 50, are part of an international grassroots organization that some sociologists are calling the second major women's movement -- albeit, without the overt political agenda.

The Red Hat Society, which didn't exist six years ago, now has a million women worldwide in more than 36,000 chapters. Chapters are being organized at a rate of 500 each month, according to society statistics.

An estimated 10,000 women in Colorado belong, including as many as 2,000 in Colorado Springs. There are 72 chapters here, including about 10 formed since January.

The Red Hat Society growth is amazing, sociologists say, coming at a time when many women's groups are considered old hat and fading from the social scene. But the Red Hat Society has struck a nerve with women, especially baby boomers refusing to be invisible as they age.

In a show of their economic force, they have single-handedly re- energized the nation's millinery business and caused the creation of cottage industries churning out Red Hat merchandise by the ton.

The society is not organized like other traditional women's groups. Red Hatters don't typically as a group do volunteer work, oversee community events or work in churches, the arts or other traditional women's endeavors.

Their only cause is to dress up and have fun.

But the movement is far more than ladies buying knickknacks and wearing gloves to tea parties.

"The wacky colors and the hats and acting silly are just the top layer. It's much deeper," says founder Sue Ellen Cooper, exalted queen mother, who presides at international "hatquarters" in Fullerton, Calif.

"As older women, we have been ignored. We are saying we are valuable and worth notice and no longer willing to accept the traditional role that society is offering us at this age."

Women older than 50 have been invisible and overlooked in our youth-obsessed culture, agrees professor Abby Ferber, a sociologist and director of women's studies at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

"Think of the terms that have been used to describe them: spinsters, old maids, matronly. And on TV, about the only time you see a woman over 50 is in a prescription drug commercial," she notes.

The Red Hat Society is successful, Ferber says, because it offers a way for women to promote the reality that beauty is more than being young and skinny.

"Through the shared support and experiences of womanhood, they are saying. very effectively, 'You can't ignore us any longer,'" Ferber says.

On this day at the luncheon, it would be hard to ignore them. The queen mums are showing off an astounding collection: couch throws, knit scarves, a chicken, fish and snowman with red hats, pillows with Red Hat sayings, scads of Red Hat jewelry, red and purple T- shirts and sweaters, even wine glasses etched with red hats.

There is no kitchen sink, but one lady reports to the group that she has seen a kitchen-sink drain stopper shaped like a red hat.

"As if we needed anything more," laughs Jo Ann Anderson, who heads up a chapter called the Delightful Dizzy Dames.

She has been known to wear a Red Hat-themed poodle skirt. But today, her purple pants suit is fairly sedate, and her hat -- decorated with tiara, sequined pin and trailing several yards of purple, red and white tulle -- is not the most outlandish among the spangled hatwear.

And then there are the accessories. Anderson is wearing Red Hat- patterned socks with her high heels, a tote bag bearing Red Hat motifs, a Red Hat ring, a Red Hat watch, two Red Hat bracelets, a sparkly Queen Mother lapel pin, a Red Hat wallet and key chain. The queen mum has left her special potholders home, including one that says: "The Queen don't cook."

This demand for all things Red Hat has drawn the attention of the retail world.

"Traditionally, women over 50 have been ignored in the marketplace," notes Lex Higgins, marketing professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. "The Red Hat Society is not only healthy for the women, but also healthy for the entrepreneurial spirit of our economy, too."

Women's hat sales in this country have doubled from $875 million in 1998 to an estimated $1.6 billion last year, according to the Millinery Information Bureau.