Oh dear it was so pleasant when I didn’t have to wear hats! They will pauperize me + I still feel absurd in them!
– Jackie Kennedy in a letter to Marita O’Connor, a saleswoman in the hat department at Bergdorf Goodman, written just before John Kennedy’s inauguration.
In November, 1960 Mrs. Kennedy wrote to Bergdorf’s announcing plans to purchase some of her clothing from the high-end New York City department store. From then on she wrote regularly ordering specially made dresses and accessories, including those pauperizing hats (many designed by Halston). She often added sketches with her correspondence.
How interesting that the First Lady, the woman who made the pillbox hat fashionable, was not at all a hat gal. Perhaps she was uncomfortable because she sported a bouffant, not a hairdo friendly to hats.
The pillbox style dates back to Roman times and was used as a military hat. Later the shape was popular with brides. Mrs. Kennedy wore hers large and at the back, allowing the fullness of her hair to remain.
What do you think of Jackie in a hat?
What an intriguing comment she makes – that hats “pauperize me.” Pauperize? Interesting word choice as the definition of pauper is one who is poor and dependant on public funds. Could she really have meant that hats made her look destitute?
I surmise that the comment was really more classist. Given that at the time hats were an accessory all woman wore (and men come to think of it), perhaps what she meant was that for her, as the First Lady, to sport a hat would make her look common. A shocking thing to say today but when you consider the era and Mrs. Kennedy’s background as a debutant and a finishing school graduate, it fits. Afterall, one cannot be common and live in Camelot.
Despite how she might have felt, hats were the done thing and evidently to not wear one would have been considered disrespectful. So, she obliged by having hers custom-made, often matching her coats.
The collection of handwritten notes along with other Kennedy memorabilia were scheduled to be auctioned off November 22 to 24 in Amesbury, MA.
OverDressed for Life 
What an interesting post! Maybe she was just complaining about how expensive they were. We could all go broke buying hats. But as you point out, it was de rigeur in those days…
Ah, an insensitive joke? Could be.
Fascinating. Who knew? She was a victim in her own way of the fashion-world’s expectations.
It’s interesting to note that both Jack and Jackie Kennedy did not like hats. He gave them up and started a trend among men for no hats. She felt she didn’t have that option.
yes, Moya, I knew she did not care for hats…I read several times that she wore them as an attention getting devise to advertise she and John being conventional, re the voters and where we were as a country at the time. I guessed because of the way she wore then, back of her head so her face would be more visible for photo-opts…. Women who love hats play with them and will pull them all kinds of ways… Happy Thanksgiving, Jacquelyn
Thank you, Jacquelyn. Yes, I’m a hat gal and love to play with sporting them different ways.