Inside Fashion's Mysterious Silly Hat Festival

New York Times

13-02-2025

Every year on or around the 25th of November, the French fashion industry hosts a kind of runway show just for itself. Wearing mostly green-and-yellow hats — the color combination is said to represent either family and hope or faith and wisdom, depending on which milliner you ask — young people from the Parisian luxury houses gather at City Hall to celebrate St. Catherine's Day, a Catholic holiday dating to the Middle Ages that was first observed by the couture industry in the late 19th century. Historically, the Catherinettes, as they're known — single women, each 25 years old and working in one of the city's then-dozens of haute couture ateliers — were granted a rare opportunity to meet their bosses before getting the rest of the day off to enjoy street parties, all while wearing opulent, often garish hats that were sometimes personalized to represent their individual skills or interests, or at least their house's codes. (In the late 1940s, Schiaparelli's Catherinettes wore oversize versions of the designer Elsa Schiaparelli's surreal fragrance bottles in the shape of suns and candlesticks.) Though only midway through their 20s, the Catherinettes were already considered spinsters, and their hats sent a clear message: 'I'm available,' says Sophie Kurkdjian, an assistant professor of fashion history at the American University of Paris. 'And I'm looking for a husband.' She likens the tradition to Tinder for the petites mains, or 'little hands,' as the generally anonymous artisans responsible for sewing and embroidering the world's most exquisite gowns are known.
The Catherinettes' patron saint is Catherine of Alexandria, a skilled debater who died in the fourth century and who, according to legend, converted pagan scholars to Christianity and refused to wed a Roman emperor. (She's also believed to watch over scholars and students.) More than a mating ritual, though — one that was practiced across France long before it was adopted by the fashion industry — St. Catherine's Day was also a 'bonding experience,' says Pamela Golbin, formerly the chief curator of fashion and textiles at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. 'Today it would be considered a team-building exercise.' Men from the houses eventually adopted a parallel tradition in honor of St. Nicholas, another patron saint of many, including those looking to wed, who once purportedly paid the dowries for three unmarried sisters by secretly tossing gold into their father's home. They celebrated on St. Nicholas's feast day, Dec. 6, and enjoyed five additional years of shame-free singledom, becoming Nicholases at 30.
Two years ago, the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, the governing body of Paris Fashion Week, which had long heard complaints about the holiday's 'antifeminism,' decided that participants no longer had to be unmarried, says its executive president, Pascal Morand. It also lowered the age for Nicholases to 25. The rule change affected people like Victor Weinsanto, a 30-year-old French designer who started his own label in 2020 and has now missed his opportunity to be feted as a Nicholas. He had appreciated the tradition since his internship at Chloé, where he'd watched Catherinettes receive handbags with their hats. (Along with the hats, which participants can keep, many houses provide additional gifts: Balenciaga, for example, offers full outfits.) Nevertheless, Weinsanto still relishes the spectacle from a distance. 'It's a moment where you can have some freedom about taste,' he says, recalling the large feathered hats worn last November by employees of Hermès, a brand not especially known for its flamboyance.
At City Hall, the participants — about 400, many dressed in black, representing 17 houses as well as the federation itself — modeled their colorful hats in a private fashion show, with each brand having chosen its own music. (Hermès opted for Sabrina Carpenter's 'Espresso'; Patou went with a Lil Wayne song.) For a competitive industry that generally takes itself quite seriously, the event is a goofy anomaly and rare moment of unity. And yet the ceremony isn't without a bit of good-natured one-upmanship: The Catherinettes' hats are often designed by the house's creative director, but some revelers at City Hall had added personal touches; an employee of the millinery Maison Michel affixed a wooden stake to theirs to reflect their passion for the TV series 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.' Others attached rhinestones or felt Chanel logos to their hats, the same way American college students might customize their graduation caps.
The Catherinettes and Nicholases, who now both celebrate in November, no longer come from only the world of couture, which means that employees from any of the 100 or so houses in the federation can participate. (These days, only 14 of those maisons still make haute couture: custom garments produced entirely by hand and requiring at least four full-time tailors and seamstresses.) Nor must they make clothes at all. Among Balenciaga's 23 participants last year, there were employees from its retail stores and corporate departments. (The brand, known for its subversion and streetwear, dressed its staff in black baseball caps designed by its creative director, Demna, with green and yellow on the brims.) Delphine Bellini, the chief executive of Schiaparelli, sees it as a moment to 'pass the baton between the senior experts and the young talents,' and an opportunity to impress upon the company's next generation the importance of craftsmanship. 'I have to admit that I'd rather represent the modern interpretations of the tradition than the old ones,' says Emma Spreckley, a press assistant and recent Catherinette at Dior, which had 68 celebrants in 2024. Each year on a Friday around the holiday, the house throws a lavish ball for its team — not just any corporate office gathering but an extravagant cocktail party attended by its creative directors, along with Delphine Arnault, the chief executive of Dior fashion, and her father, Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of Dior's parent company, LVMH. (Everyone at Dior gets the following Monday off.)
'It's our most important meeting of the year,' says the British milliner Stephen Jones, who learned about the Catherinettes when he was hired at Dior in 1996. He acknowledges some mystery around the tradition — outside New Orleans, which hosts a small neighborhood hat parade to acknowledge St. Catherine's Day, the celebration is unfamiliar to most Americans, even those who work in fashion. Multiple houses and designers were reluctant to say too much about the custom — almost as if it were a secret. 'Some things are meant to be kept private,' Jones says. 'When you buy a Dior haute couture dress, what are you buying? You're buying a dress, but you're also buying privacy — something that's just for you, not anybody else.' To him, the event is about the pride fashion takes in its artisans: The hats he designed for this year's event, inspired by the brand's resort 2025 collection, were made by the Scottish knitwear manufacturer Robert Mackie. 'In the United States, they celebrate sports heroes or military heroes,' says Jones. 'In France, they celebrate dressmaking and fashion design.'