In most of the world, there’s not much call for wearing an apple headband or an Eiffel Tower on your head. Perhaps for Ascot, a festival or a fancy dress party, but the rest of the time, most people opt not to make their heads into a spectacle.
Not in Bangkok, where crazy headwear is all over the place. Why not go to the mall in Minnie Mouse ears? Or work on your market stall wearing a plastic watermelon slice atop your barnet? In recent months, more and more shops and market stalls are popping up that are devoted purely to unusual headwear. It seems the more unusual the better. We’re talking glittery Hello Kitty’s glued expertly onto plastic bands, whole fruit bowls balanced precariously on a small hat and bows so big they promise to give you that life-sized doll look.
It’s no surprise that this look has filtered down from the catwalks. With both the Ascot crowd and the Isabella Blow wannabes in mind, designers are very fond of their outlandish headwear. This year’s most influential designers in the field of mental headwear are Brit designer Giles Deacon, who created a fabulous but altogether impractical swan headpiece that made Bjork’s infamous 2001 Oscar’s gown look subtle (however big you’re imagining it to be, you’re not thinking big enough), and King of Hats, Philip Treacy for Givenchy’s spectacular Super Bowl creation for Madonna. Inspired, we assume, by Bangkok’s most fabulous kathoey’s, the huge, glittering masterpiece from Treacy has gone on to become one of the most copied pieces of headwear in Pratunam market, where you can pick up a look-a-like for around THB1000. We know because we have one.
The other reason headwear is so sought after this year in this year’s unfortunate obsession with the British royal family. Kate Middleton and the Queen in particular. We’re going to try and gloss over this influence on fashion, as we’re sick to the back teeth of them after the Jubilee.
So, our advice is to shun the Middletons and instead embrace your inner Grace Jones. Scour the boutiques at Terminal 21, the fashion stalls in the basement of Central Rama 9 and the teeniest tiniest alleyways you can squeeze down in Pratunam and Siam Square, where it’s bursting with both cutesy designs and ‘LOOK AT ME! I’M A DIVA’ pieces (which we strongly favor).
It doesn’t matter what you wear these pieces with, because absolutely nobody will be looking at anything else you’re wearing.
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Bangkok Fabulous: Where Gaby Doman explores fashion and beauty in the Big Mango. If it’s hot, it’s here. And it’s hot in here.
