i just had the most delightful afternoon.
for starters, it's about 75 degrees and sunny in SF - a happy, cheerful anomaly. so, i put on my red dress.
This evening, d and i will be attending a speakeasy party. attire is 20's anything, so i have it planned out. we're going summery - like the hamptons in the great gatsby. i have vintage badminton rackets and last weekend found a navy straw cloche hat. just about everything is set. but today i really needed to find d a hat. i know, it's only a party. and most people have no idea that a fedora isn't period-appropriate. or that no one wears felt hats in the summertime. it's so wrong. but i have high standards where period costumes are concerned. and i was looking for a boater. one of those flat-top, straw hats worn by men in the early part of the 20th century on summer days.
i looked everywhere. second hand shops in the mission, costumes on haight, and about every vintage store in upper haight (which was clogged with tourists around the corner with ashbury). i found a bunch of boaters at la rosa, a classy vintage boutique on haight. but they were in peak condition, genuine, and running upward of $100.
i found some nice ones across the street at Decades of Fashion, priced around $100. i said thank you and prepared to search on. the store clerk called me back and said he could try searching in the back for a box of "beat up" boaters that might be less expensive (and do the trick for a one-time event!). no luck. he found one around $80. still too rich for my blood. as i was walking away, he called me back a second time with a helpful tip for vintage at goodwill (but that's a secret!). I thanked him, and sighed because all the affordable hats i'd seen weren't proper 20's period. "maybe i'm a little too exacting," i said. "No," he replied, "you're just trying to make it right."
how true!
so, i soldiered on. a couple doors down, on about my 10th store, i hit the jackpot. i walked into wasteland, a trendy vintage boutique that i was sure wouldn't have something so old and almost antiquey. but there, just within my reach in the menswear section, was an old boater with a brown ribbon, sitting on a hat stand. just a little bit of water damage on the brim, but it would do the trick. i almost ran over to it, and got nervous as i turned over the yellow pricetag. $18. EIGHTEEN DOLLARS!!!!! my feet had wings. i flew to the cash register and smiled like an idiot. there's nothing like finding exactly what you want, when you know exactly what you want.
i sauntered outside and down the street where a young man had set up an old smith-corona typewriter on a tray table. his sign said "pick a subject and a price and get a poem." so, for $5, he wrote me a poem about my new boater. then i bought an ice cream cone on my way home. how LOVELY.
"boater hat in wasteland" by lynn gentry
One mans trash can be found by a woman in a red dress
To be brought home to another man
The twenties were roaring
But all over now
Ned Cassell lived in his neighborhood in Castro since
The 1970s when he bought his house with his wife, Susan
They met while he was out writing about the counter culture in the
Forrest of Seattle
They had lived there for ten years when it became
evident that his dad Arthur would need to move in
Ned had always been close with his dad
and he could not bear the thought of leaving him in a home
He took him in till his dad died three years later
With the twenties still fresh in his mind
Now all that is left is Ned in Castro
and a Boater hat in Wasteland
myspace.com/lynngentry
