Art installation at Quai 417

April 2012

My favorite Montreal tailor H. Padar launches a made-to-measure collection

Style Files:

Printed totes w/ fun scroll over graphics

Pretty leathers for fall, but be sparing

March 2012

Most amazing Montreal lingerie brand, La Fee Verte

New lingerie shop on Crescent St. steals name from No. 11 boutique hotel in London 

Addition Elle Brings Plus Size Sexy Back  (This story was reprinted in the Vancouver Sun, the Ottawa Citizen, the Edmonton Journal, and a few others too. Go plus size sexy!!)

Caudalie French Vinotherapy Beauty Brand

Coloured Denim

Bridal Boudoir Announcement.. no, you will never, ever see me there. But Bridezillas have a right to roar, I suppose

A is for Aldo  – From Feb. 22, 2012 in Montreal Gazette and Canada.com.

Ski Style 2012 gets catty

A story about new utilitarian party looks starring Montreal designer Travis Taddeo

Canadiana brands are branching out‎
Montreal Gazette – Dec 8, 2011
If you thought antler chandeliers were passé, consider the “schtick hangers” made of hockey sticks, …

Holiday shopping: Montreal’s fairs
Montreal Gazette – Dec 1, 2011
Mia Lapierre-Poirier (left), and Catherine Toupin are ready to scamper through the Nutcracker …

Style File‎
Montreal Gazette – Nov 24, 2011
Winter galas and formal Christmas parties are among us. And if you’ve already got a stunning dress you want …

I once had a friend meet me for breakfast wearing skyhigh wooden platforms, micro hot pants and a knit bra top. It was her waitressing outfit from the night before. I escorted her back to her apartment, swatting away all the fellas who jumped in front of her. At one point we dived into a cab, but the driver’s eyes were examining her every curve in the rear-view mirror. So we got out.

“I’ve finally gone too far,” she said, fastening my cardigan around her hips. It concealed one cheek of her derrière. I’ve worn jean-shorts that were too short and a dress that hiked up so high I had to yank it down with every step. But her outfit was, indeed, way too much for daytime. Mind you, if I had her knockout figure, there’s no telling what I would have – or wouldn’t have – worn.

Itsy-bitsy streetwear is about as new as the bikini. And with summer in full smoulder, ladies of all ages are once again taking it off. But this season, young darlings are only mildly blush-worthy compared to eras of yore.

Rather, expect to see ladylike conservatism with whiffs of prairie-girl charm on the streets and rooftop terrasses. Think blousy button-ups snapped to the neck, paired with shorts or skirts nipped at the waist.

Funny thing is, many ladies who flaunt their underwear insist the peekaboo look is rather demure.

At a recent party at the Crystal Hotel in honour of the coming Festival Mode & Design, transparent looks were on full display.

“Every time I see a girl in see-through, I think it’s really sexy, ” said Eliane Sauvé, a communications student at Concordia University and a fashion and music blogger. “It’s a way to show femininity without being vulgar.”

Sauvé wore a tight lace bodice to the event, with a very visible black strapless bralette underneath. She also had on smart-looking highwaisted shorts, bold-framed nerdy-girl glasses and flat sandals. The overall effect was sort of sexy, sort of serious.

“In French, there’s an expression: We prefer to suggest than show,” Sauvé said, leaning forward.

“I’m not the type of girl to wear low-cut with cleavage,” she pointed out.

Young women in seethrough clothing often believe it conceals more than it reveals. In fact, Sauvé and her two roommates, who were sporting transparent tops at the party, defined their style as conservative.

“I was told my outfit was (ideal) for a picnic,” said Sara Barrière, one of Sauvé’s roommates. Barrière was wearing a white blouse with a visible pink bra underneath, paired with short shorts. She had been at work all day as an assistant at Chatelaine magazine, she said, explaining why her shirt was slightly less transparent than her roommate’s. But she does think that even moderately sheer tops like hers are inappropriate for most offices, unless it is a fashion-forward environment similar to that of Chatelaine.

There are boundaries that come with nearly naked dressing, after all.

“I think it’s a young look, and you need to have a certain body type,” Barrière said. “I feel like if you don’t have big boobs, you can really make it work.”

She also believes the transparent look needs to be subtle.

“I wouldn’t wear a very flashy bra with it. This one is pink and kind of like skin colour – I wouldn’t wear it with a fuchsia bra,” she said. (Her bra was punch coloured.)

Friend and roommate Cindy Boyce, a photographer, had on a very transparent black chiffon top buttoned to the neck. She paired it with a black bra underneath. “It adds a bit of fun in your look,” she explained.

Boyce wasn’t always so confident with the peekaboo factor, though. When she first put on the outfit, her roommates had to give her a pep talk before leaving the house.

“I’ve had this shirt since (high) school and I used to wear it with a little tank top under it. But now I just wear a bra,” she said, laughing.

What happened? “I think it’s a change of mentality,” Boyce said, adding the bra is difficult to see except when light hits the shirt from the sides.

The three girls said the transparent look is “very à la mode” for summer, with sheer T-shirts, blouses and dresses now available at stores like American Apparel, Zara and H&M.

Would they wear a sheer skirt or dress without a slip underneath? “Maybe at the beach!” they shouted in unison, agreeing that wearing visible panties would be pushing the limit. It would also be counter to their fashion politic.

“I just hate those girls that are not respectful to themselves, like when you can see their G-string. I prefer things that are hidden,” Sauvé said. She noted that in the winter she usually wears a lot of black silky and soft items, which have a similar sensual appeal.

A young girl’s charm is rarely without its ironies, of course, along with ample doses of denial.

In the high-stakes game of young courtship, a lady must distinguish herself, after all. For these girls, it all hinges on not looking too suggestive.

“I think all my guy friends prefer things that are not obvious,” Sauvé said. “Like when you’re speaking to the girl and you just want to look at her décolleté …”

Barrière cut in, agreeing: “She (should be) sexy but not obvious.”

The girls ushered over a fellow to endorse their theory on the male perspective. Angelo Cadet, artist, actor and TV host, was happy to oblige.

“Mystery is desire,” Cadet noted when the girls asked him to comment on the seethrough look. “The poet Jean-Pierre Ferland says that when you whisper words to a woman, she glows. But with women it’s words, and with men it’s form. So when you whisper to us your form, we’re in love.”

His charms appeared to be working, so he continued. “See-through, in my mind, makes my heart beat like a tsunami.”

How does Cadet feel when he sees a woman in a corset and a tight skirt? “Hey, that’s for my room, baby,” he beamed. “When my mother’s away.”

Some parting words of wisdom for the scantily clad: When dressed in less than usual for the summer heat, it’s best to travel in packs and bring your girlfriends along. And for the sake of your own sanity, don’t forget to bring along a cardigan (a long one). It doesn’t take much to attract more rubberneckers than anticipated. The blush of denial is adorable, but shame quickly paralyzes. If you wouldn’t wear your outfit to dinner at the house of your boyfriend or girlfriend’s parents, that’s a good litmus test for whether you might suddenly get uncomfortable wearing such getup on the street.

****BRALETTES

A bralette, you ask? It’s simply a bra without underwires, and is flimsier and more dressedup than a sports bra. To nail the subtle look of transparent dressing, bra lettes are far better options than underwire or push-up bras. Pricier options include those made by Cosabella, which sells them in strapless, bikini and large bandsupport styles in a variety of colours. (There are many at Lola & Emily.) Bralettes can also be found at American Apparel, Urban Outfitters and many other young adult-themed stores for less than $30.

Give yourself the slip that doesn’t cling‎
Montreal Gazette
Not ready for peekaboo fashion? Many transparent clothes come fully equipped with slips, but they don’t …

Gaultier leads blissfully theatrical Pinkarnaval parade‎
Montreal Gazette
Just when you thought this town couldn’t possibly accommodate another festivity, Pinkarnaval came floating down …

I will never forget her. I was inside the Java U when a crunchy-haired brunette with oversized sunglasses waltzed up and ordered herself a café concoction. The silver reflective logo on her Lululemon yoga pants caught my eye, and then I noticed she was wearing high heels. High heels! With boot-cut sweats!

This woman was obviously not heading to the gym. Nay, she was wearing yoga pants as real pants, complete with a blouse and heels.

It was a fashion faux pas that’s becoming all too common these days. The yoga-pant revolution has created mass confusion about where or where not to don casual dress -let alone how to wear it. And the bar of what’s acceptable is threatening to get lower and lower.

As we peel off our parkas this spring, “pyjama dressing” is rolling in as the latest casual-dressing craze. As in, floral motif PJ-style pants and onesies for the teens. For a more mature look, there’s boudoirinspired Hugh Hefner silks, which capture a vacationingin-Bali sort of glamour.

We’ve seen the look for evening, but during the day the look can appear, well, very breakfast styles.

“Don’t say you’ve become a mother and then have to conform to this Lululemon mantra,” says Valerie Grove, a new mother who has witnessed many of her friends quickly convert from fashion vixens into leisure-suit loyalists. “Just because you want to feel comfortable, and are shlepping around a kid doesn’t mean you have to look like you’re wearing your PJs.”

Grove holds a weekly playgroup at her house. Of the 10 moms who attend, about half are in yoga pants (Lululemons specifically). The rest are in jeans and possibly leggings with stylish sweaters.

Turns out, Grove does not consider leggings a fashion faux pas like yoga pants. In fact, she considers them an ideal way to be comfortable and look fashionable, especially when paired with boots or a long sweater. “They could be velvet, denim or even nicer fabrics,” she says. But she hesitates to say leggings look appropriate for a night out on the town.

As for wearing yoga pants anywhere beyond the house, the gym or out for a power walk, Grove believes that “it’s like telling the world you haven’t showered. ‘Hello, I haven’t showered’. That’s what it is.”

Tina Fargnoli is a yogatrained, certified Pilates instructor who moved from Montreal to Toronto a few months ago. She reports having at least 25 pairs of yoga pants, again, specifically Lululemons. Other pairs seem cheap to her, and the fabric all wrong. When I asked her to name the styles, her reply was: “Oh gosh. Well, there’s the crop, the regular long ones with a flare, the regular straight-leg ones, which are not flared, the hip-hugger ones. “Some are more formal ones that are three-quarter-length culottes.” Fargnoli says lately she’s more into the company’s running pants, which look a lot like conventional leggings. She wears them with leg warmers.

Fargnoli has Lululemons that she considers “too nice” for yoga, which she proudly wears out to dinner and for a night on the town. These include pinstripe yoga pants with built-in belts, which she wears with blazers, and a number of the company’s sundresses. She says she wears the skorts out a lot, too, pairing them with nice tops. Many of these items have similar fabrics to the company’s yoga pants.

Would she wear yoga pants -or sweats as she calls them -with heels? “Funny. Just yesterday I saw someone in really high heels with cropped Lululemons,” she said. “And I can now say that I would absolutely never.” Fargnoli has worn her yoga pants with wedge sandals, but typically she wears them with her Pajar boots in the winter and her Etinies sneakers or flip-flops.

BUSINESS OF LEISURE

Thanks to active moms and yoga babes like Fargnoli, not to mention those Sunday strollers, the leisure wear business is booming. According to a recent New York Times article, sales at Lululemon increased 56 per cent in the third quarter last year. The Times’ story also went on to report how women in New York City are donning elastic waistband pants to work -at offices, not just yoga studios.

Will Canadians be joining the elastic waistband officegear trend?

“Our reality as Canadians is not there,” says Lindy Omassi, director of fashion and sourcing at Smart Set, a division of Reitmans. “I work with all fashion people, and nobody wears yoga pants to work.”

Though, Omassi does believe the look can appear very cool on some people, particularly those “with a body from heaven.” And ultimately, people should wear what suits them. “The reality is to dress to please yourself,” she said. But as far as the office or out to dinner, she would not recommend yoga pants. Like Grove, she believes active or leisure wear is for brunch, around the house and for the gym.

Smart Set’s MUV activewear line features yoga pants and leggings at about $30-35 apiece. Omassi and her colleagues have endlessly debated where these clothes would be worn, and how. They concluded that what Smart Set customers really care about is looking polished in their leisure suits.

in their leisure suits.

“I see the most fashionable pant nowadays as the pyjama pants,” says designer Andy The-Anh, who has started to design for local activewear company Lole.

“With the draw string, and big wide leg.” He says fashion needs to go to extremes to work -as in go skinny with leggings or go wide with pyjama pants, but stay home in your boot-cut pants.

However, The-Anh says he won’t be designing pyjamastyle yoga pants for Lole, and probably will stick to legging types. The company has a “studio to the streets” product mantra, which features a strong activewear component. “All the (aerobics) instructors prefer a more tapered legging look, so you can see the lines of your body,” he said. As such, for his Lole designs, The-Anh is working with new colours, such as orange, to spice things up.

Denis Gagnon adds zip to hotel uniforms
Montreal Gazette - Suzanne Wexler - ‎July 13, 2011
Denis Gagnon added some flair and plenty of zippers to the staff uniforms at the Place D’Armes Hotel in Old Montreal Tuesday night. The designer, in collaboration with hotel owners the Antonopoulos Group…

Screening the sunscreens: rethinking SPFs
Montreal Gazette - Suzanne Wexler - July 13, 2011
In the United States, the FDA has released new regulations governing the marketing of sunscreens, banning the terms “waterproof ” and “sweatproof ” since the FDA claims all sunscreens eventually wash off. …

Swimsuit retro fits
Montreal Gazette - Suzanne Wexler - ‎Jul 7, 2011‎
Shan sells stylish bathing tops and bottoms as separates, with cup sizes ranging from A to F. The Lola retro one-piece bathing suit, $305. MONTREAL – Forget those teeny bikinis. …

Montreal designers have The Edge
Montreal Gazette - Suzanne Wexler - ‎Jul 6, 2011‎
When U2′s The Edge steps out for an encore this weekend at the band’s Montreal concerts, two young Montreal designers will be looking at one thing in particular: his shirt. That’s because the star musician is …

Bike your own Booze, National Post — June 4, 2011

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When I was a kid, my mom — a converted shixsa with blond hair and a southern drawl — would have me and my sister Alana model our synagogue best, from orange gingham jumpers to plaid blue kilts with white turtle necks, weeks before the Jewish high-holidays. If the clothes didn’t fit, she’d scour the shops for new ones. She wanted us to look “appropriate” for synagogue, as she called it.

A woman of details, mommy would also inspect our white stockings for runs and make sure our black and white saddle shoes were polished. Then she’d also take us to get our red hair freshly trimmed into bowl cuts, and have the beautician scrape all the specks of dirt from beneath our fingernails.

I assumed that mommy was so obsessed with us looking appropriate because she looked and sounded so different from the other women at our modern Orthodox shul (‘synagogue’ in Yiddish) in Montreal, where the congregation just stopped short of traditions like top hats and wigs.

Maybe we needed to look more religious than we actually were?

Of course, mom never bothered to explain what ‘appropriate’ meant. We just had to do it.

“I don’t want to look like HER,” my sister would shriek. Alana, a year and a half older than me hated the twin look, where on top of having identical freckly faces and hairdos, we’d also wear the same dress.

But mom said that when Alana and I matched from head to toe — “sigh!” — we were absolutely to die for.

Alana was particularly wary of mom’s fashion policies. Eventually, she came up with a theory that all the shul’s women were competing in a secret beauty contest. As in, the rabbi and his men were constantly judging the women, trying to decide who the best looking one was — best looking in a religious way, that is.

“Why else was everyone always checking each other out?” Alana insisted. And why else would mommy be so obsessed with our clothes? Obviously if we looked good, it made her look even better.

Alana’s Mrs. Shul contest was quite a compelling idea. It was just like the beauty pageants on TV, I imagined, but instead of rhinestone gowns and swimsuits, the women pranced around in long skirts and doilies during important holidays like Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

But one thing I could never figure out is who won the Mrs. Shul beauty contest — and whether that someone was mommy. Like most Jewish affairs, I imagined that this decision was made behind the closed doors in the rabbi’s office, and only shared with the most elite shul members. It was quite unlike the Miss USA pageant, I considered, when the winner got to wear a real live crown.

While Alana hated the secret synagogue beauty contest, I absolutely loved the idea. So despite the ruffle trim, I beamed for the invisible judges every time the three of us strutted into synagogue. We’d all wave ‘hello’ to my dad on the men’s side of congregation (men and women are divided in Orthodox Jewish synagogues), who’d been there since dawn, chatting away with the fellows around him.

Then we’d shimmy through the aisle and sit down next to bubby, my father’s mother, who’d also been there since morning. “He’s always such trouble!” Bubby would say, frowning at my dad from across the room. Unfortunately for my father, the synagogue was set up like a small version of a round hockey arena — but far more ornate — so bubby could easily watch her little boy misbehave during services.

This all-seeing architecture also allowed the congregation to check out whoever’s outfit, whenever they pleased. And when the large wooden front doors swung open, heads swiveled to monitor the next person coming in.

And oh! were the ladies magnificent, especially the ones too sophisticated for doilies. They had perfectly teased hair covered in these glamorous wool and velvet hats. Some wore theirs with wide brims, others had tiny numbers cocked to the side, radiant with sparkles. They wore luxurious silky blouses stacked with shoulder pads, which accentuated their tiny waists and fitted pencil skirts.

They were glorious, absolutely to die for.

Mommy was glorious too, and because of her blond hair she was softer and gentler looking than the others. She was like the one Krystle Carrington surrounded by dozens of Alexis Carringtons. To me and Alana, she was a serious contender as the shul’s most shayner maidel (‘prettiest woman’ in Yiddish) — even though it was impossible to know if she ever won.

As the years went by, mom’s dress-up ritual continued. We knew she was one of synagogue’s finest, or at least a runner-up, so we assumed she had great authority on the subject: “This is not a rock concert,” she’d say to us as teens, shoving all black clothes aside, instead putting us in sky blue and white suits, along with matching sweater sets.

Though, as a major nod to my budding sense of style, mom did let me keep on my favorite platform Mary Jane shoes. The strap across the top of my foot made them ‘appropriate’ she said while fastening a headband over my red hair, which I now wore long and straight.

Whether it was decided in secret by the rabbi and his associates, or determined by the invisible workings of nature, I was now certain there was an established pecking order among the shul’s women. The ladies always commented on each other’s outfits — and some clearly got more attention than others.

Sadly, bubby passed away at 96 years old. She was a shrewd woman, and as quick with compliments as she was with her constant vigilance over my father. Because of her traditional ways, I learned Hebrew and Jewish history. I also learned the importance of family, along with respecting one’s background and unique history.

Only, after her watchful eyes left us, our family soon degraded to a less pious house of prayers. It was a conservative congregation closer to our new home, and more modern in its Judaic rule interpretations. In other words, it was rumoured that some congregation members ate bacon.

At this ritzy shul, women dressed like they did on the streets of New York. They wore Chanel suits in the most up-to-date, form-fitting fashions with the matching purse and the camellia flower. Even the men had fresh-looking suits and perfectly gelled hair, just like Wall Street bankers.

Mom thought the whole charade was ridiculous. Everyone was far too gaudy for synagogue, she said. But, nevertheless, mom suddenly began to outfit us in her real designer purses and jewelry, once again turning us from potential outcasts into embedded participants.

“What a bitch,” a woman declared after services, as I, barely old enough for a Bachelor’s Degree, clutched a brand new Bottega purse, which I wore with shiny new woven loafers.

“I love your Elsa Peretti,” a married couple said to me as I was heading out the exit. It was only later that I realized they were talking about my oversized silver swirly belt buckle, which matched my swirly cuff bracelet and earrings.

I didn’t know half the labels in mom’s fashion arsenal, and Alana certainly didn’t know either, but we knew that mom was just sending us off to battle in this shul’s glamour brigade, which was less of a secret beauty contest and more like a full on civil war.

Alana was totally disturbed; I was utterly fascinated.

As the years went on, I became something of a glamour puss, buffing and polishing my style depending on the venue. This is all thanks to mom, of course. She even trusts me to dress myself for synagogue without surveying my outfit first — though my high-heels still make her gasp.

Now mom, or grandma, gets to dress up Alana’s two adorable young daughters. During one of these third generation dress-up moments, I finally learned what ‘appropriate’ for synagogue meant too — and it wasn’t about winning a beauty contest. Or not exactly.

Alana was about to dress her newborn for shul, while my mom was squishing the two year old into an ornate, frilly flower dress, complete with bonnet and white stockings. I was half-joking when I asked my mom whether she bought the matching outfit for the new baby.

“NO matching dresses,” Alana piped in with her signature tone.

“Yeah, what was that all about anyway?” I asked, wondering about why she was so obsessed with making us look like twins at Jewish services.

“Oh, you two were my sweet little baby dolls,” she replied, her southern accent suddenly resurrected. “I wanted you to look just like the ones I played with growing up named Trixie and Lulubelle.”

Then the memories came swirling back to me: The bowl hair cuts, the matching gingham jumpers, the powder blue suits from my teenage years — and the hand-me down pearls now hanging around my neck.

Turns out, the outfits Alana and I were forced to wear had nothing to do with looking religious for the rabbis and stylish enough for the Schwartz’s. It was about looking “appropriate” for mom. She was a displaced southern belle who just happened to like that prim and proper look. “If it were up to me,” mom said, “you’d still be wearing matching sweater sets and headbands”

Alana and I were stunned. We considered mom such a shul beauty queen — and the ultimate inter-denominational fashion warrior — that we tended to obey her fashion council. We thought she wanted us to triumph among all Jewesses; in fact, she was way more interested in making us stick out like two proud goyim, dressed in high-collar necklines and spanking new saddle shoes.

Upon studying mom’s matchy-matchy tangerine Escada outfit, it was even more surprising that we didn’t pick up on her flagrant attempts to condition our style all those years. When we were kids she’d wrap us in her favorite frill. And when we were older, she’d examine our wardrobes in advance and invariably conclude that our clothes were too tight, too dark or far too short for shul. “You’ll look like a street walker,” she’d say. By University, she was donning us in her favourite designer picks, which also came in matching sets, or at the very least were impeccably coordinated.

Everyone else was so dark and streamlined, the way tribal people living in the northeast tend to be. Meanwhile, we’d been wafting into synagogue wearing our Southern Baptist best, twisting our hair into hot-rollers while everyone else was straightening theirs.

I remembered bubby and how she was always grumpy when we arrived. She had to watch her two little shayna maidels waltz into shul after their extreme Christian makeover, hand in hand with our flaxen-haired mother. Wise indeed, all she could do was sigh and then utter some annoyance about my dad. Changing religions was one thing, but converting a woman’s style convictions was a totally different affair.

An article all about the increased popularity of hats, with a nod out to Kate Middleton and Johnny Depp (yep, I just put them in the same sentence!), plus an explanation as to why hats went out of style around the ’60s. It has as much to do with our hairdos as it does the rejection of stuffy old norm. *This article appeared in the Montreal Gazette and online at the Telegraph Journal Canada East.

Kate Middleton is fascinated by fascinators, small headpieces adorned with jewels, tulle, flowers and most importantly, feathers. Her playful headdress has helped morph the otherwise conservative dresser into a sharpshooting fashionista, especially when paired with those body-con dresses. When announcing her engagement, Middleton wore a saucer-like number by milliner Vivien Sheriff. To recent formal occasions, she has sported teeny fascinators with wild feathers, and even glamorous wide-brimmed versions. They were all poised delicately on the side of her head, right on top of her brow, like a perpetual wink.

Fascinators latch on with either combs or clips. They are intended to have a weightless, hovering look. 

Of course, Middleton won’t be wearing a fascinator on Friday, the day of her wedding, even though veil fascinators are popular choices among brides these days. Rather, she will likely be wearing an heirloom tiara from the royal collection, which is a traditional royal wedding gift.

No doubt, Middleton’s stylish entourage will be sporting fancy and wild-looking headpieces for the occasion, including the ever-popular fascinators. In England, hats are as significant as dresses in such enchanted circles – and nowadays, for Top Shop shoppers, as well.

To celebrate the royal wedding in Canada, stores are even stocking up on the British fascinator. Mind you, they’re slightly tamer, less pricey versions. They also typically fit on as headbands, not as clips. But those decorative feathers are still propped up high to the sky.

“People are buying headbands just to watch the royal wedding on TV and to run through the streets. Headbands with feathers!” says an amazed Corine Serruya, a lively dame who sells hats all over the world from her Ophelie Hats factory on Jean Talon Street in Montreal. She has supplied many stores with the same high-flying numbers, which are to be sold as paraphernalia in celebration of the royal wedding. “So many boutiques in Toronto wanted to make sure they’ll have them for their customers. I couldn’t believe it.”

Serruya says that she was raised in France, which might explain her disbelief about all the monarchy madness. “People are really attracted to the royalty. It’s genuine love,” she now understands.

Serruya’s factory boasts a metal hat-blocking machine, which allows her to stamp out hats in about seven minutes (the traditional technique requires pulling material over wooden blocks, which can take more than half an hour). Because of her stamper, Serruya’s retail costs are low, ranging from about $60 to $160 per hat. This formula, along with her constant need to take risks with her designs, has allowed the feisty businesswoman to distribute hats all over the world including to Harrods in London, Le Bon Marché in Paris, Takashimaya in Japan and Holt Renfrew in Montreal.

“Each market is totally different,” she says. For example, Spanish girls love casual headpieces called “tocados.”

“They’re small, colourful and with sequins. And they have to look happy,” she said. In Jamaica, things are quite the opposite. “Women are very proper,” she said, opting for black hats for church or daytime wear. Women in France are not huge hat buyers, but when they do purchase them, they either go really small or “they go big,” she says, motioning toward an oversized glamorama fan hat, in black. It was see-through, and utterly stunning. “They can’t really kiss anyone when they wear it,” she laughs. She says Japanese women love hats, and generally opt for small, hip styles.

In Montreal and Canada, hat markets are notoriously inconsistent, if not non-existent – excluding toques, which are ideal for keeping warm. But she says, like the younger set in Britain, more and more twentysomethings are wearing hats with their outfits. But instead of clipping on outlandish fascinators, they typically cover up with fedoras, trapper hats and otherwise masculine styles.

“After the 1940s and 1950s, women just stopped wearing (hats),” she said. Previously, women wore hats to church, for a stroll, and just about everywhere. Then, times of change and revolution turned the once adored chapeau into a symbol of constraint, she said. Today, Serruya says that aside from religious dress, getting a 35- to 55-year-old to wear a hat is near impossible because of this negative connotation.

Lucie Gregoire is a Montreal milliner who crafts custom-made hats using the old, wooden-block technique. She has a strikingly similar observation about why hats fell out of favour. “It was about liberation,” she says. Gregoire points out that after hats were outmoded, hairdressers took over. “Now women don’t want to wear a hat on top of their $150 colouring job,” she said. “Hats do flatten your hair; I can’t pretend they don’t,” she said. Plus, they can present a basic mechanical constraint. Driving with a hat can be a challenge, for example.

For the royal wedding, Gregoire is making a custom hat for Sharon Johnston, the wife of David Johnston, governor-general of Canada. She says it will take three fittings to make the hat perfect for face and outfit (usually it’s only one hat fitting that Gregoire requires). Gregoire also once made a fedora for Johnny Depp to wear in the movie Secret Window, along with a matching hat for John Turturro.

Gregoire regularly teaches regular beginner workshops in her studio for groups of three to five students (French only). So while she knows first-hand how riveted people can be by hats, she also knows just how difficult it is to get a woman to wear one, let alone finding one that looks just right.

“In French, there’s an expression, ‘I don’t have a head for hats,’” she said. “But if I didn’t have the opportunity to try on so many, I’d say the same.” She said stores often only carry the same styles and sizes, which aren’t right for everyone. Hats are typically a question of proportion – do you have a big face or a small face, a large or small head? These issues can determine how big the brim should be and how high the top of the hat should be, for example. “The same woman can look horrible with the brim pointed down, but if you lift it up, it changes everything,” she said. This is why women should try on as many styles as possible before making sweeping conclusions about whether or not they look good in hats.

If a woman still refuses, she’s probably just nervous about sticking out in her hat. “People believe they are being watched more than they are,” she said.

And regardless of this jittery 35 to 55 age group, Gregoire again echoes Serruya in declaring that “hats are back” – especially among the younger generations. She says CEGEP-age students come to her studio and try on a mini-fedora backward or totally cocked to the side (her ready-to-wear hats cost about $75, while her custom hats range from $200 to $400). “Now (hats) are all about fashion,” she said, instead of about being proper. But in choosing small hats, women still obviously care a great deal about their hair.

“Hats are becoming very important,” says Avi Tenzer, design director for Aldo Group. “Before, we just had one or two (hats). But, now, accessories are booming.” Tenzer explains that the economic downturn led to an increased interest in accessories, particularly among younger generations. Accessories generally cost less, and more importantly, they can also spruce up an otherwise bargain outfit. “You might buy skinny jeans and flip-flops, but add on tribal necklace or earrings, and you have a look,” he said, noting that every week in the Aldo accessories division, sales are on average 20 per cent above expectations at stores in Canada, the U.S. and Britain.

Hats especially give that “final touch” to one’s style, Tenzer said. And like the hat-wearing Depp, style nowadays is all about creating your own personal signature – for women and men.

“Young kids today mix rockabilly with punk with grunge” he said. Meanwhile, back in his day, everyone was “a victim,” copying the star of the moment, whether it was Duran Duran or Boy George. Hats are an ideal way to update and mix traditions.

“I think they’re going to be even bigger,” Tenzer said of hats. And by bigger, he likely means more in numbers. While Indiana Jones-style hats are a trend, and a woman might whip out a wide-brimmed sun hat on occasion, like Depp’s fedora and Middleton’s fascinator, it’s still the smaller numbers that work with our precious ‘dos.