Nothing makes us happier than when a hat alone can instantly embody a personality, movie or individual! You can just show, for example, a “Stovepipe”, and immediately we think of Lincoln, or the Aussie with that unique Claw hatband, and everyone knows it’s “Crocodile Dundee”, or a high crown fedora and we’re singing the theme to “Indiana Jones”.

Interestingly enough, one actress has two hats that have instant recognizably. When you see the “Ascot” you immediately know it’s “My Fair Lady”, and as soon as you spot that long pink “scarf hatband” wrapped around that sleek "saucer" brim , you instantly start to hum “Moon River” from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. Both, of course, are hats that sat on the head of the effervescent Audrey Hepburn.

In fact, the “Breakfast at Tiffany” hat is one of our most request woman’s hats. And there is always a definite correlation between the amount of requests we suddenly get, and the airing of that classic movie on TCM. Usually, the requests come from a whole new generation of movie audiences who had never seen the movie before, and fall in love both with the free spirit of "Holly Golightly" and that wondrous hat!

Actually author Truman Capote envisioned Marilyn Monroe in the part of Holly but, hands down, Hepburn owns that role, just like the hat owns her character!

From the very moment the movie begins, with the haunting Mancini score (a studio executive said after the first preview,  "Well, I think the first thing we can do is get rid of that stupid song", at which point Hepburn stood up said, "Over my dead body!"), to the sight of early morning Holly Golightly eating a Danish (Hepburn hated pastry's, and almost didn’t get through the shot!) and dreamily “window shopping” at Tiffany’s, we are enchanted by this modern fantasy.

The hat is a classic Chapeau du matin, and its crown and brim a version of the ironically named “orbite de lune”. Some have said that the trademark scarf of Isadora Duncan was the inspiration for the gloriously outrageous attention-getting boa-length hatband. Both Isadora and Holly being the embodiment of the independent free-thinking "modern woman".

We call our hat the “Joie de Vivre”, and it is inspired by the grand “Tiffany” hat that Hepburn made immortal.

This beauty is deceivingly complex to make. The hat begins with the careful crafting of its unique structure with special buckram. The body is then hand covered, cut, and fitted with European Ultra-Sheen silk-satin. The extra long 23”, 1¾ wide pink satin ribbon is hand bound and finished with what is actually called a “guillotine” cut. Just the thing for the free spirit woman out on an early crisp Sunday morning, window shopping on Fifth Avenue (actually not that far away from our own New York showroom)!

There is some controversy about just what color the original hat was. Our notes indicate that it was "Formal Black", but new digitally remastered DVD versions of the movie show that it could also have been "Cocktail Dark Blue". One legendary costumer, a great friend and client of ours, who was around during the making of the movie, has even suggested that two hats were used, one for the interior shots of Hepburn in her apartment getting ready to leave with George Peppard, and another when, weeks later the exterior New York streets shots were done, when Hepburn and Peppard meet up with Patricia Neal (can anyone say "cat fight"?!). His feeling is that the "interior" hat could have been black, and the "exterior" a very dark blue. Our own feeling is that it was black all the way, but because there is such controversy, and we have had requests for both colors, and frankly, they are both great colors for this special hat, (why not buy both!), we are offering both the Formal Black and the Dark Blue colors.

The "Joie de Vivre" comes with our silk-satin lining, our special Lifetime Guarantee, a signed and numbered personalized Certificate of Authenticity and is shipped in a custom Baron Hatbox suitable for storage.

It can also be ordered through our easy Flex Pay Payment plan.