My Fair Lady (Movie Version)--Ascot

Musing's comment made me think of other hats I should profile.

This is, of course, Audrey Hepburn in the hat and dress from "My Fair Lady" (Movie Version) designed by Cecil Beaton. What's funny is it's probably my least liked outfit from that movie (love the yellow suit she "runs away" in), and my least liked hat from Ascot. The dress is all wrong for the period, which is funny because all of the other dresses are correct--and it's not like she was Marilyn Monroe in "Some Like it Hot" where Marilyn's figure was half the point. Audrey's figure was never her strongest suit. Nor was her voice. I love, love, love and emulate Audrey and wear Sabrina necklines whenever possible, but she was wrong for this movie. Poor Marni Nixon--who's voice we love in so many movies. There are other Ascot hats too, all in lovely black and white, that are just more fantastic.

My own personal connection to this hat is our high school production of MFL, where I froze when singing in the audition (whole long childhood trauma thing--story for another day) and ended up the Assistant Director and dialect coach (I do English accents well, if I do say so myself). I so wanted to push the lead off of the stage and the director/acting teacher knew it. Esp. since the lead had only auditioned because her mother made her! Anyway, we ordered the costumes and sets from some company that supplies that sort of thing to high schools and they were facsimiles of the originals. This was a very strange hat supported with what looked like a giant sachet to give it that angle. Much flattened and yellowed by years of grubby hands and small boxes. Other stories from that production were the stage manager getting trapped on stage during a scene change, a Henry Higgins who had to have his lines fed to him from offstage (I had such a crush on him--one of the few times I had a crush on a non-bishie--he was sweet but really could have cared less, although we did have some good math conversations), and a Alfred P. Doolittle who ripped his pants on stage.