The Princesses of York, Eugenie and Beatrice—in fascinators for the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton—with Prince Edward and Prince Andrew.
It was named in the 1960s, re-emerged with heightened artistry in the late 70s, and today is worn by both royals and the fashion forward. It traces back through the centuries, perhaps to the moment in the 1770s when on a whim Marie Antoinette planted some feathers—ostrich and peaco*ck—into her pomaded hair. It may go back further still, to the first female hominid who saw something beguiling—a fern frond, a butterfly wing—and stuck it on her head, well, fascinatingly.
Yes, we’re talking about the “fascinator.” At the 2011 royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine (Kate) Middleton, an event that saw an abundance of fascinators in attendance, the pale pink, baroque-meets-biomorphic fascinator worn by Princess Beatrice of York became a star in its own right. It was later auctioned off for charity on eBay, where it sold for $131,560—presumably more than any other hat has ever brought at auction.
“When it comes to an aristocratic or royal wedding,” says the British etiquette expert William Hanson, “a hat is an absolute essential for a lady.” Tradition calls for morning dress, and morning dress calls for a hat. A royal wedding is upon us. But does a fascinator still fill the bill? And what exactly is one?
In the 18th and 19th centuries, a fascinator was an oblong head covering “made of silk, lace, or net,” according to The Fashion Dictionary, “or of fine yarn knitted or crocheted.” In short, a scarf. Today’s fascinator is nothing like a scarf; taxonomically, milliners place them under the genus of hats. But it is a haiku of a hat. The Irish hat designer Philip Treacy, the artist who made Princess Beatrice’s headpiece of vintage rose satin (one of 36 numbers he created for guests at William and Kate’s wedding), says, “A fascinator is a small adornment for the head, attached to a comb, wire, or clip, that perches on the head. No brim, no crown. The term today refers to anything attached to a clip, a headband, or a comb.”
From top, a Philip Treacy fascinator worn by the late fashion doyenne Isabella Blow, a Rachel Trevor Morgan fascinator atop the duch*ess of Cambridge, a model adorned by a Stephen Jones creation.
“The thing that makes it a fascinator is the focus on a trim,” says Gretchen Fenston, a New York City milliner and an archivist at Condé Nast. “The base is usually not noticeable. All you see is horsehair or veil or tulle or feathers or flowers.” It’s the trim without the hat.
How did the fleecy fascinator of yore become the blown-on brevity of today? Looking to the late Victorians, we see it presaged in their little afternoon hats, so mignon, worn forward and held in place by a ribbon run under the hair in back. The 1930s saw both the tiny “doll hat,” scaled for a Chihuahua, and the surrealism of Elsa Schiaparelli, whose objet-like hats (a shoe, a lamb chop) asked Magritte-like existential questions. In the 50s the couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga balanced the operatic volume of a coat or gown with a teeny totem of a hat that was like a held note—the fascinator finding its voice.
And then came the American milliner John P. John, whose label, Mr. John, was a household name on par with that of Christian Dior. “What happened,” says the incomparable Stephen Jones, a British milliner of edgy poetics, “was in the early 60s, Mr. John in New York made hats that he called ‘fascinators.’ These were hats made out of veiling which went on top of your beehive. In the 1950s, in America, small hats had been called clip-hats or half-hats, but ‘fascinator’ sounds much more alluring. It was a marketing ploy by Mr. John that was extremely clever.”
Mr. John re-purposed the historical term and, a decade later, in the late 70s, Jones swept in and changed the hat biz. He is credited with evolving the fascinator into a modern phenomenon—conceptual and fantastic.
“I always quite liked small hats,” says Jones. “My schooling in millinery was not through the grand fashion shows but nightclubs—you can’t really wear a big hat for dancing in a nightclub, whether it’s the Blitz in London or Studio 54 in New York. So you wear a small hat. And that hat has got to be far more whimsical—or a fascinator. Because that’s what will work on a dance floor or in the back of a limo.”
Philip Treacy, first championed by the late magazine editor Isabella Blow, came on the scene in 1990. “I was so inspired by how she wore my hats,” says Treacy of Blow. “It was as if she was not wearing them—like they happened to be there to entertain herself and whoever came in contact with her.” Even though many of these hats could be called fascinators, Treacy does not like the term. Instead, he says “hat”or “headdress.”
