Swiss Avenue Home Tour on 9 May 2009

The Dallas Hat Band met on Saturday, May 9, 2009. We met at Cynthia's home and then strolled the streets to tour the homes that were open for the Swiss Avenue Historic Home Tour. We had so much fun that we decided to make it an annual event. The weather was perfect.

We started out on Cynthia's front porch, enjoying the view and people watching. In the picture below, Cynthia is going into the house and Rhonda and Maureen are visiting. We all brought salads and sat down together for a delicious luncheon.


This is Cynthia and Joyce as we prepare to take the tour.

Along the way, we stopped at the park, where there was live music and vendors. Best of all, one of the vendors was selling hats.

Rhonda tried on a pink hat that matched her outfit fabulously!


Maureen bought this stunning big brimmed black and white hat.

Here is a mirror image of Suzanne.
Loretta bought a cute green hat.

One of the beautiful homes on Swiss Avenue.

More Swiss Avenue homes.

Rhonda with one of Cynthia's dogs. She has two beautiful Old English Sheep dogs.

After touring for several hours, we went back to Cynthia's for some of her delicious homemade sangria.

Here is the group.

Back row: Maureen, Benita, Joyce, Suzanne, Nicole

Front row: Loretta, Rhonda, Cynthia

Happy Hatting

Coco Chanel at Celebration

At our March 21 meeting, we enjoyed visiting over lunch and then we had a presentation about Coco Chanel. Celine, our French lecturer, is describing the size of the hats worn in the time of Marie Antoinette and telling us they were so large a woman could hardly move. Things as odd as live birds and vases of flowers could have been part of these enormous hats. We learned Coco was born Gabrielle Chanel and after her mother died she was put in an orphanage and learned to sew from the nuns. In her 20s she opened a millinery shop in Paris and began making clothing. She is remembered for the little black dress and of course Chanel No. 5 perfume, both introduced in the 1920s. She popularized comfortable clothing, slacks for women, short skirts, all a departure from the corsets previously worn by women. Coco was an eccentric woman and Celine shared with us some famous quotes. Among them: "Fashion fades, only style remains the same" and "A woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future."

Rhonda and Maureen listening to the presentation.

She had our rapt attention.

Joan, Benita and Loretta looking happy.

Laurel and Nicole in their chapeaux.

Rhonda and Margarita

Tina, Stephanie and Nicole looking good.

Rhonda, Cynthia, Maureen, Nicole, Margarita and Celine

Although there were 15 of us, this was all I could get together for a group picture.

Valentines Day at Nicole's

Our February meeting was hosted by Nicole on February 14, 2009. This meeting was another of our Member Spotlight Series. Nicole shared with us some of her collectible treasures, and she served us a wonderful punch and finger foods. Among those treasures were beautiful vintage French fashion plates from Gazette du Bon Ton.
She also passed around some books on vintage Vogue magazine covers that were before the days of photography when the fashions were beautifully drawn. She also wowed us with some of her vintage millinery supplies, including silk veiling and rare, exotic feathers.

Kelley

Margarita

Rhonda and Betsy

Shannon

Joyce and Paula





Because it was Valentine's Day, many of us took the opportunity to wear our red hats. It was a good day to enjoy wearing red without being mistaken for that other hat club.

These are the three groups shots I took. As you can see, I was having difficulty getting a good photo with everyone's face clearly visible.

Holiday Tea at the Adolphus, December 27, 2008

Holiday Tea at the Adolphus was wonderful. This was our second time to meet here, the last time was in 2003. As you can see from the number in attendance, this is a very popular event. Tea is held in the lobby of this beautiful old, historic hotel. We sat on sofas and tea was served on the coffee tables. Our tea captain informed us it was perfectly proper to put our plate on our lap to eat since the table was so low. We had three courses, starting with tea sandwiches, then a raisin scone with Yorkshire cream and fresh strawberry marmalade and then an assortment of desserts. We drank several wonderfully exotic teas. Everyone was dressed very elegantly.Back Row: Rhonda, Kelley, Joyce, Maureen, Benita, Shannon, Raquel, Betsy and Loretta

Front Row: Nicole, Suzanne, Margarita and Carly

Benita, Nicole and Maureen, all looking fabulous.

You can only see Nicole partially here, but she has the attention of Betsy, Kelley and Margarita.

We were seated in three groupings for tea. Betsy, Rhonda, Joyce and Loretta enjoy visiting here.

Carly and Nicole having a good time; all smiles.





















Margarita and Kelley; both wore large brim brown hats with brown satin ribbon trim.




Maureen and Nicole in front of the huge Christmas tree in the lobby of the Adolphus.




















Maureen and Benita chatting. They dressed in the similar colors!


The lobby is beautiful.





















Nicole in her cute pink hat and Margarita looking very sophisticated.

Rhonda posed with our tea captain.

Suzanne and Carly

A second group photo.

Fashion on Main - November 22, 2008

Promenade of Style: The Caralee Biery Smith Collection

The Dallas Hat Band was fortunate to visit Fashion on Main and to see this beautiful exhibit of clothing from the 1830s - 1890s. The detail and beauty of the dresses is exquisite and the condition of this vintage clothing is remarkable. Caralee invited us to join our meeting with the Costume Society of America's meeting and she was available to share her knowledge with us. Fashion on Main is presented by the Texas Fashion Collection, College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas.

Myra of UNT gave us a "behind the scenes" tour of the unfinished area that will become the expanded exhibit area of Fashion on Main. The University has purchased this historical building, which opened in 1929 as the department store Titche Goettinger, or just Titche's, then became Joske's and later closed altogether in 1986. Today it also houses apartments.

The current exhibit area is only 500 square feet, which limits what can be exhibited. The new space will be much larger and allow special exhibits that it has been unable to accommodate in the past.

Suzanne and daughter Carly.

The dress behind them is Civil War era,

having a bit of a military look.

Joyce in that cute red hat and Benita with her unique vintage flair including fox tails and veil.

Nicole enjoying the view among the beautiful lace wedding gowns.

Cynthia and Maureen looking very stylish.

From the exhibit, we walked the short distance to Neiman Marcus and had a wonderful lunch at the Zodiac.



Joyce was wearing this darling red Lilly Dache hat. During lunch, she shared her interesting story about the hat. Many, many years ago, she came to Dallas to shop at A. Harris, a prominent department store. In those days, women wore a hat and gloves to go shopping downtown. For those of you who haven't been around Dallas that long, A. Harris Department Store merged with Sanger Brothers in 1961 and became Sanger Harris, which later became Foleys in 1987. Anyway, back to the story. She found this wonderful hat at A. Harris and wanted it so much. But she had 4 small children and she couldn't even consider such a hat. She kept going back and admiring it. As it happened, friends invited her to their country club to play BINGO, and, you guessed it, she won the jackpot and rushed over to spend her winnings on the hat.

Carly in the forefront, Benita and Betsy next to her.

Loretta, Laurel (oops, caught her by surprise) and Nicole.

Self portrait taken by Carly with her mother, Suzanne.

Kelley brought a gentleman friend, Dorian, her grandson.

He is a cutie and a perfect gentleman. He even wore a hat,

but like all gentlemen, he took it off at the table.

Stephanie, Margarita and Cynthia enjoying good conversation and wonderful food.

This was a really fun meeting of the Dallas Hat Band and we had a really good turnout. Thanks to all for your attendance and support. See you in December for our Holiday Tea at the Adolphus.