Red hot

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

"Red Hat Society is the best thing that has happened to the hat business since FDR," says Diane Feen, a Florida fashion consultant for Hat Life, a trade directory.

The Red Hat Society was launched in 1998 in California when, on a whim, Sue Ellen Cooper bought a quirky red hat for herself at a thrift store, and then more for friends' birthdays. With their gifts, she included the poem "Warning" by British poet Jenny Joseph, which reads, in part:

"When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple, with a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me, and I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves... and pick flowers in other peoples' gardens and learn to spit..."

Cooper and her friends went to tea in their finery and had more fun than they could imagine. Jokingly, they dubbed Cooper "Queen Mother." Friends told friends across the country about it. Everyone wanted in on the hat act.

Cooper, 60, seems as astonished as everyone else that the movement caught on like it has, with much of the growth in the past two years.

When it started to snowball, she and another woman held office hours to deal with the questions and mail. Now they have 50 employees to handle logistics. Overhead costs are paid by licensees who manufacture Red Hat items, and the $35 in chapter dues and $18 annual fees for those who want bonus points to shop online at www.redhatsociety.com.

"In some way I think it was just meant to be. If I had intentionally set out to start something like this, it would not have worked. It's a good life lesson," Cooper says.

The group has no club rules because members say they are weary of functioning within tight structures, as they have most of their lives, Cooper says. The bit of organization the chapters must do to set party dates and such is jokingly referred to as "disorganization." And they don't do even that work without some goodnatured grumbling about it.

Of course, many members do community things; they have jobs, volunteer, raise money for causes. But they differentiate that from Red Hat events, which they call "recess."

Their emphasis on verve is reflected in the chapter names: Hussies with Hatattitude, Ladies of the Purple Cloth, Scarlet O'Hatters, Red Hottie Toddy's, Purple Mountain Reddish Fetish, ColorREDo Cuties, Red Hat Flashes.

There's even a chapter of nurses in Birmingham, Ala., who call themselves the Red Hat Nightingales. They wear purple and red scrubs with Red Hat motifs in the operating room.

Jo Ann Anderson, 56, a retired office manager, recalls how she started the Delightful Dizzy Dames a year ago. A friend in California kept bugging her to start a chapter, even sending her a couple of hats, a purple outfit, a feather boa, a key chain and wallet with Red Hat motifs for inspiration.

Anderson had a new neighbor across the street and all they had ever done was wave to each other. "I went across the street, and said, 'I don't have any idea what I'm doing, but let's start a Red Hat chapter.'" They now have 38 members. When they party in full regalia, she notes, men and women alike stop them on the street and say, "Way to go!"