Fashionables Don Mad Hats for a Cause

Just when Ginny Smallwood thought it was safe to wear her madcap hat--the same one she’d spotted on Ann Pange at a luncheon recently--another woman wore it to a benefit at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel the same day. “I thought today would be the perfect day to wear it,” said Smallwood at Easter Parade, a lunch and fashion show staged Wednesday by the Fashionables, a Chapman College support group. “Ann doesn’t belong to the Fashionables.”

And then JoAnne Mix came through the door wearing the same hat.

Pange had lent it to her.

“Yes, the very same,” Mix said with a giggle. “Ann let me borrow it. We spotted it when we went shopping together. She grabbed it first. Her arms are longer than mine.”

The hats may have been the same, but they looked . . . different. Smallwood had put hers on backward. “Now I’m not sure if I’m coming or going,” she said, staring at Mix. “I turned it around because I thought it looked better.” Both women agreed that hats, especially holiday hats, heighten a woman’s fashion impact. Mix, who is petite, uses them for height and glamor, she said. “Hats bring the eye (of the beholder) up. They complete the composition. I approach each outfit like a painting.” Smallwood, also petite, believes that hats give women a lift. “A new outlook. I especially love hats with veils. They’re provocative.”

Before she presented a show featuring fashions for spring and summer, Nodie Weltner, fashion director for I. Magnin at South Coast Plaza, discussed what hats can do for a woman. “Hats frame the face, make the eyes look brighter, the cheekbones higher set. Or they can camouflage its poor features. A wide-brimmed hat can make a large nose look small. And a wide brim can cast a flattering shadow on an aging face.”

Turbans are the most difficult hats for women to wear, Weltner said. “There are no illusions created with a turban. No shadows. The face is prominent.”

For her Easter hat, Pam Goldstein chose a silky straw with a pin-striped ribbon she purchased at Amen Wardy. “I chose it to go with this white linen suit that I had made in Hong Kong,” she said.

Mary Ann Wells bought her veiled, navy blue straw on the way to the event. “I was the first customer in the Bullocks Wilshire hat department this morning,” she said.

Hedda Marosi chose a black broad brim that dipped. “I wear hats whether they’re in or out,” she said. “They make me feel dressed up.”

Ollie Hill wore the largest hat, a tomato-red open-weave straw with a brim that bumped into other brims. “Red is my color,” she said with confidence.

Charlene Prager wore the most classic Easter hat. A rose-pink straw, the hat featured a clump of silk flowers at the back. “This is the first pink I’ve ever had in my wardrobe,” she said. “I love it.”

After a luncheon of chicken and fruit tarts, Fashionables president Mary Lou Hopkins-Hornsby presented G. T. (Buck) Smith, president of Chapman College, with a check for $15,000. The funds represented proceeds from annual dues and a fund-raiser held in December that netted the group $4,000.

Smith said the money would be used for Chapman’s new Learning Center, a 92,000-square-foot building, which will open on the Orange campus this fall. “It’s intended to bring the electronic and computer revolution into the learning experience of every Chapman student,” Smith said. “It will house our business and management schools and our English and (foreign) language schools--all areas that depend heavily upon computer technology.”

Smith said $8 million had been raised for the $10-million project.

Winnie Short, program chairman, arranged the fashion show. Smallwood and and Ileane Doolin assisted. Centerpieces, straw baskets filled with spring flowers, were arranged by Gloria Hassett. “On no budget!” Hopkins-Hornsby noted.