Hats in a fifties and sixties upbringing

I had forgotten what a big part hats played in our New Zealand childhood until my sister suggested I write about them.  Now that I have looked at the old photos, I am wondering whether we wore hats a lot because of the climate or simply because everyone wore them.  My sister also reminded me that our mother used to make them - those dressmaking skills again.

Toddlers wore bonnets which now strike me as something out of Jane Austen, but the New Zealand sun can be ferocious and this is probably the reason for protecting children.

  

When we were slightly older we 'graduated' to straw but the one below shows us with fabric hats with elastic ties.  Very important in the wind!

Here we are on the beach.  Note how the hats appear to be blowing inside out like an umbrella.  As I remember grown-ups used hat pins instead of ties but not on beach hats.

Even men wore hats in the sun.  My grandfather was a great Francophile so the beret is an obvious choice!

And here is one of my father in the 1970s.

Hats were obligatory when going to church and I even have memories of someone preaching a sermon on the subject.  Here is an early picture of me in my straw decorated with flowers.  I notice my younger sister is wearing a bonnet and gingham!

In winter we had berets.  I remember my mother making these.  She would take a piece of thick fabric (usually corduroy) and make a circular template of newspaper by drawing around a plate.  This was for the top of the beret.  I think she then made a second circle but with a hole cut in the middle of it.  Presumably this was a template from a smaller plate.  She must then have bound the edge with a bias strip.

I do remember knowing about Kangol berets early on though, so maybe some of them were not home-made.

And we certainly wore hats on formal occasions such as weddings. Please note that my grandfather is wearing a top hat.

Here is a wedding photo from 1967, the year I left home.

Hats became distinctly unfashionable around 1960 but we always wore hats to school and you were given an 'order mark' by the prefect on gate duty if you did not wear one as you left the grounds.  In summer we had cream panama hats with a blue and green hat band.  At Easter our mothers had to take the hat band off this hat and attach it to the green felt hats we wore with winter uniform.  The reverse happened in October when we started wearing summer uniform again.  We also had green berets as neither the panamas nor the winter felt hats could cope with rain in the quantities we had in Wellington.  Unfortunately I do not have a photo of any school hats.

I think the family practice of wearing hats must have had a strong influence on my later fashion choices as when I got married in 1972 I spurned the idea of a veil and bought an expensive straw hat from Libertys.

I have also noticed that it these days children do wear hats as sun protection.  All the family photos we receive show the latest generation wearing them.

PS: Apologies for the constant changes of font and font size.  I have spent hours trying to solve this problem but failed so decided to publish anyway.  The working document looks fine but not the preview.  If anyone knows how to solve it, please e-mail me or message me on Facebook messenger.