Despite the threats of April showers, the hats at the Dallas Arboretum were all flowers during the 35th annual Mad Hatter’s Tea last Thursday.
“Thank you for attending today despite threatening weather,” Women’s Council president Sarah Jo Hardin told the 700 or so guests who braved the stormy forecast April 20. “It looks like we had a lot of clouds, but a lot of silver linings that brought us good fortune.”
The Women’s Council began putting on the Mad Hatter’s Tea in the late 1980s. The annual spring fundraising event raises money to maintain the arboretum’s A Woman’s Garden, a small park with lakeview terraces, fountains, and flower plots behind the DeGolyer House. But the popular luncheon is more competition than garden party. Each Mad Hatter’s has a theme, categories, celebrity judges, and an outrageous and frenetic hat competition.
Guests design their own caps to theme and peacock down a runway in hopes of impressing the judges. It’s a fun competition, and “the hats have gotten increasingly more elaborate and decadent over the years,” Hardin told D Magazine earlier this month. Women have shown up with butterfly releases, Big Tex replicas, and even live goldfish mounted upon their heads.
Hardin said organizers hoped for more scaled back looks for this year’s theme, “Majestic Mad Hatter’s Luncheon – A Celebration of English Elegance.” The guests didn’t get the memo. They came in flamboyant and Ascot-worthy fascinators, caps, and hats and matching outfits. Some women arrived with teacups and finger sandwiches glued to their hats. Many came with towering tulle, floral, and butterfly creations. One guest wore a replica of Princess Diana’s famous “revenge” dress. Another even came with a giant marijuana leaf on her hat—this year’s luncheon was held on April 20, 4/20.
“It’s a slight visual overload. It’s an awful lot to take in,” said celebrity judge and British photographer David Yarrow, who noted the accessories here were not supposed to be “inconspicuous and graceful.”
Guests arrived at 10:30 a.m. and milled about outside A Tasteful Place, munching on finger sandwiches and sipping wine, champagne, iced tea, or lemonade from one of the bars. The patio was congested with hatted visitors, but guests could escape the crowds out to the lakeside garden. There, they could test candles and perfumes from Lady Primrose Fragrances, and models in designs by Sachin and Babi Ahluwalia stood like statues in the gardens.
The sun burned through the clouds during the competition, making everyone hot and sweaty in the humid air, but that in no way impeded the “English Elegance” hats duking it out for the day’s crowning achievement: a category win from the judges.
This reporter witnessed elbowing to the line, guests hiding their drinks, and some heavy-duty flirting. But the judges focused on the accessories themselves. “I think the more effort that’s made, the more the effort should be recognized,” Yarrow said.
Judging, though, was tough.
“My category was not sponsored by Hobby Lobby, Michaels, or hot glue,” said GRO Floral and Event Design creative director Nathan Johnson, who judged the “Chelsea Flower Show: Most Creative use of Fresh Botanicals” category. The award went to Kristi Boylan, who won by default because her “Wars of the Roses” hat was the only headpiece there that actually used real flowers.
Past Mad Hatter’s chair Barbara Bigham had a similarly difficult time judging the “The Hybrid: Best English Garden Hat with a Texas Twist” category. “Ladies, I was a little disappointed in you,” she told the crowd before giving the award to another past Mad Hatter’s Chair, Claire Catrino, who wore feathers she gathered at a Texas ranch. “That poor bird was in [flight] just a few days ago,” Bigham said.
There were eight judging categories, ranging from most true to theme to best group, but the organizers added a last-minute award, “Lifetime Achievement,” to honor Kunthear Mam-Douglas.
“I know not a soul in this room is going to be surprised,” Bigham said, announcing Mam-Douglas. She had won “more than I think anyone else ever had.”
Mam-Douglas then climbed onto the stage in a stunning crown, dress, and train, all decorated with pictures of issues plaguing the world and of Cambodia. Despite the levity of the event, Mam-Douglas said she wanted to bring some gravity to the day. The longtime Mad Hatter’s attendee recounted how she recently returned to her birth country of Cambodia, where she went to remember her family’s escape nearly 50 years ago during the country’s revolution from the Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s. An estimated 2 million people died.
“I am a genocide survivor,” Mam-Douglas said. “I retraced my path. But yet, I retraced 17 millions of Cambodians. The life that they lived. The struggles that they endured. The separations of family.”
She had tears in her eyes as she told her story, and Mam-Douglas received a standing ovation from many in the audience.
Unlike the previous year, the hat awards were announced after the luncheon. Tables were split between A Tasteful Place and Rosine Hall, and guests enjoyed a lunch of chicken salad, strawberries and cucumbers, and cannolis for dessert. Event co-chairs Anne Stodghill and Kristina Wrenn, as well as Hardin, gave opening remarks and encouraged everyone to bid on the silent auction. Available through an app, the silent auction included dozens of items, including Lanie Wilson tickets, a Hallmark Christmas movie set visit, facials, jewelry, and lots of gift cards.
Later, designer Michael Faircloth came to the stage to give a talk on the history of hats. Faircloth acknowledged that usually this portion of the program was typically a style show, but he encouraged guests to “eat up, drink up, listen up, then go home and put your feet up.” He spent the next 20 minutes explaining the various shapes of hats, like the triangle and wrap; famous headgear over the years, like Jackie Kennedy’s inauguration pillbox hat; and the history of the accessory.
After Faircloth’s talk, it was time for the visitors to call it a day, grab their goodie bags filled with tea and biscuits, and head home. The storm clouds were dark and gloomy as guests waited in the valet line, but the weather held off. Then, as the last stragglers left the arboretum, the rain finally began to fall.
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