If we were hats ...

My name is Julie, I’m fifteen and I live in Mirefleurs, near Clermont-Ferrand. I go to Saint-Eugène Lycée and I’m a dancer at La Manufacture. If I were a hat, I would be a pink bowler hat on Coco Chanel’s head and we would visit Sydney together…


My name is Yolène Floret, I’m sixteen and live in Riom-ès-Montagnes. I study at Saint-Eugène Lycée. Next year I'd like to study nursing. If I were a hat, I would be Puss in Boots’ hat. I would live on Rachida Dati’s head, and she would take me to Tokyo…

My name is Claire Barbet, I’m sixteen. I live in Naucelles, near Aurillac. I go to Saint-Eugène Lycée. I plan to become a nurse. If I were a hat, I would be Peter Pan’s hat, grey with purple dots. I would decorate Thierry Henri’s head and we would visit New York City together…

Our self-portrait triptych is entitled If we were hats... It’s in the form of three A3-size collages, each collage representing the personality of one of us.

Why "be" a hat?!

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the hat was considered a sign of social distinction. The type of hat worn by a person identified the social class to which they belonged. The farmer wore a beret, the worker a cap, the bowler hat was a sign of gentrification and the top hat was a sign of belonging to the ruling class.

Today, the hat does not have the same social function except, perhaps, in England where the Queen and women members of the aristocracy wear extraordinary hats on important occasions. What is funny is the seriousness with which they wear their oversized headwear.

Nowadays, it is rather more a matter of taste or fashion. Now, people who like to wear hats are increasingly rare. The few people who do, do so to stand out, not to show off their social or financial superiority, but to assert their singularity. This aspect of the hat phenomenon took us off the beaten track…

For many film makers and artists the hat is an important part of a character’s costume. Magritte, Charlie Chaplin or Laurel and Hardy derided the respectable bourgeois. Charlie Chaplin played a down and out who, in spite of all the misfortunes that befall him, wants to keep up appearances; his bowler hat and walking stick symbolize his ridiculous class pretentions. The contrast between being a beggar and his appearance is a source of fun.

The hat plays a fundamental role in Magritte’s famous surrealistic and poetic paintings. In his Golconde (1953), Magritte reproduces ad infinitum the figure of an anonymous man, wearing dark grey clothes and a bowler hat, falling like rain drops over a town. Here, the hat is a metaphor of the human condition in the twentieth century: loss of individual identity and banality of everyday life.

In our self-portraits, we chose to represent ourselves as hats less for the hat’s symbolic connotations, but more as a flight of artistic fancy. Headwear can be extravagant, like those oversized feather and felt, beads and bauble constructions of eighteenth century aristocratic ladies. Hats, for us, mean fantasy, exaggeration, surrealism, eccentricity… words we feel sum us up nicely!

So, we wanted a bit of craziness. Who, apart from us, could be mad enough to imagine he’s a hat? Maybe the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, who personifies rather well the spirit of our work. As his name suggests, the Mad Hatter is truly bonkers, just like his exceedingly strange hats.

The name of the Mad Hatter was inspired by the expression “as mad as a hatter”. There is a scientific fact that explains the expression "as mad as a hatter”. Mercury used in the creation of felt hats made the hatters sick, with confused language and distorted vision. “Why is a raven like a writing desk?" is the Mad Hatter's favorite riddle. It has no answer, of course, but it makes us think. It is this puzzling aspect which inspired us. We want to provoke and stimulate the imagination.

All this fantasy reminded us of Walt Disney. His cartoons, which we liked so much when we were kids, are magical. That is why Puss in Boots and Peter Pan are in our work.

Claire has chosen to be Peter Pan’s hat because she would like to have been in his story. She would like to be like him, a child who refuses to grow up, in his own small make-belief world, and to live extravagant experiences. She has chosen a grey hat with purple dots. Grey for innocence and purple for extravagance, which is in perfect agreement with the character of Peter Pan!

Yolène would like to be the hat of Puss in Boots because he is courageous and elegant. She likes his way of doing things and his self-assurance. She would like to like him... She has chosen red to symbolize the several battles of Puss in Boots, and black for elegance. These two colours also reflect Yolène’s fighting spirit.

We discovered the work of the fashion designer Philipe Treacy. He is famous for his hats of all shapes, colours and sizes. They can be extravagant or very simple. Some of them hide the face of the person wearing them. Our theory is that some people wear hats to hide themselves, for shame. They can’t accept who they are or want to disappear into the crowd. So, they wear boring hats. Other people wear colourful fantasy hats; these people trust themselves, though some are just fashion victims, eternal teenagers in search of meaning. Some hide behind a smile, others behind a hat… This little theory is based on sketchy ideas but does allow us to say that every hat reflects a person’s personality; Philipe Treacy’s beautiful creations illustrate this point rather well.

Just to add to the weirdness of our triptych, we sent our characters off on trips to exotic places. We dream of flying, snuggled on the heads of Coco, Rachida and Thierry, to Sydney, Tokyo, and New York, cities that personify each of us.

For Julie, being a pink bowler hat on Coco Chanel’s head came spontaneously to mind. Coco Chanel embodies elegance, creativity and new ideas. She freed women from their boring, conservative dress code. She was a real artist. To curl up on her imaginative and intelligent head would seem logical. By becoming her hat, Julie might acquire some of Coco’s genius…

Yolène chose Rachida Dati because she is the first person who came to mind. Why? I do not know but I think she has a strong personality. Despite having had a difficult life, she has got to a high level in politics.

Claire chose Thierry Henry because he’s the first celebrity she thought of. Besides Julie and Yolène have chosen women, so Claire preferred to choose a man.

When we visited the MAAA collection, we miraculously found a watercolor triptych that echoes our own work: three heavily-clad women wearing crazy and majestic hats! It’s a pastel-coloured fashion drawing by Louis Capmau dated 1900. He used sanguine, white chalk and various pigments. Even if Capmau’s hats appear excessive, he treats the theme in a neutral way; he does not seek to create an atmosphere or put over a message. In our out-of-joint opus, even the theme is not obvious! We like this contrast between Capmau’s innocuous oeuvre and our own crazy effort; what about you?