Susan’s globetrotting again. Here’s a winter warmer from her archives…
Big furry ears make me happy. It might work for you too. Can you imagine the winter high street bustling with creatures? Foxes, badgers, the odd Minotaur, not to mention all the beasts you can’t name. Could hats change the world?
Asks Lewes based felt-maker and performance artist, Barbara Keal.
Here are some of her designs:
Could this be part of a retro-regressive trend? As we turn ourselves into animals, dogs are getting their own London restaurant. Soon we’ll all be back sharing primordial-style long houses with our livestock.
And who is responsible for this curious clothing time warp? Antler wearers have included fashion leader, Lady Gaga, and other well-heeled looking, neatly dressed types.
The recent cold weather may be partially to blame. And, of course, at Christmas anything is acceptable.
Will you be tempted to unleash your inner beast?
Hardly a day goes by when Im not required to unleash my inner beast
Could hats change the world?
Why not? I thought this was silly at first, but when I imagined thousands of people in antlers and traditional Viking garb marching through the streets for world peace and human rights, I became really quite excited.
I don’t suppose this will get far in countries where the association of horns and cuckoldry remains (if it does). The gesture with which University of Texas football fans signal “hook ’em [Long]horns” would once have invited a fistfight in parts of Europe, and for all I know might still.
Did any primordial folk actually wear horned headgear for anything but perhaps a cult ceremony (Plains tribes preparing for a buffalo hunt, say)? Certainly everyone says that the Vikings didn’t wear the horned helmets we imagine.
Isn’t making cuckoldry signs still popular in Italy?
Following on from yesterday’s account of a smashing lunch, I could imagine Morris dancers, perhaps in Cornwall or Devon, wearing hats like this using the spiny limbs of giant deep-sea crabs rather than antlers or horns. These could then be detached and used as batons during the dance, unleashing the inner Beast of Biscay. Any spectators from southern Europe might not then be tempted associate the performance with cuckoldry (” these crazy English, they celebrate being cuckolded by drinking beer and dancing together in public”).