Now, admittedly, these hats did look a trifle strange, which is probably why the raincoats had sold and the hats hadn't. The crown was just a bit too high to look normal. I wore one when we visited Wales, which has a peculiar high-crowned hat as part of its national costume, and somebody asked me where she could buy "one of those Welsh hats, too," so I was not altogether unaware that my headgear was, to say the least, distinctive.

    On the other hand, those hats were invaluable. Maybe you've heard that it rains in England, sometimes? Don't visualize torrential tropical thunderstorms, that's what America specializes in. What you get in England is day after day after day after day of drizzle. I'm assured it's very good for the complexion, particularly if your complexion happens to be greenish with warts. I bought the hats just in time to keep my fingers from welding themselves to the umbrella handle. With these wonderful waterproof hats, I hardly ever needed an umbrella anymore. Almost any raincoat was proof against the weather, and the hats had just enough brim to keep the gentle rain out of my eyes. This meant that when I was pushing the stroller, I no longer needed three hands.

    If I looked a bit out of the ordinary, so what? To begin with, nobody could see me because either they had rain in their faces or an umbrella in the way. And in any case, my idea of dressing is better described as costuming. Not only can't I resist an old-fashioned, high-necked blouse, I can't resist putting it together with a flowing skirt of the right cut to create a Gibson Girl outfit. A trenchcoat inevitably, to my mind, demands a Marlene Dietrich-style mannish hat for a Forties' look. And I used to have a raincoat with such wide cape sleeves, that when my mother sent me a bonnet (which actually was part of a costume) that she'd picked up in a garage sale, all I needed for Purim was to put the two together and voilą! A la mode circa 1830.

    I got away with this sort of thing for years. What other people thought of me I don't know, but I viewed myself as tastefully eccentric.

    Then my girls became teenagers.

    Any mother of adolescent girls knows that their dream, deep down, is to require all mothers to wear full-length veils or preferably cloaks of invisibility until their daughters are married, safely out of the house, and no longer really related to their bizarre parents.

    What a mother does, wears, says, and thinks (if she doesn't keep her lips firmly buttoned) all reflect on her daughters. No matter that other mothers' daughters may admire the mother in question. Unless the girl's mother dresses in the latest styles, is fifteen pounds underweight, has a prestigious career and bakes the best cakes in town (as well as being just like everybody else's mother), a mother is nothing but an embarrassment.

    One of the most shameful things a mother can do is to pull a shopping cart. I knew a mother whose daughter was so paranoid about this essential item of household economy, that my friend used to wait until her daughter was out of the house before she used the disgraceful instrument, and she made sure it was unloaded and hidden away before her daughter's return. Needless to say, I also use a shopping cart.

    Most of my daughters had suffered my strange habits in silence, but eventually one of them made her feelings known. Whenever she passed me in the strange rainhat, pulling a shopping cart, she would walk by me very quickly, saying out of the corner of her mouth like a gangster in a Grade-B movie, "I don't know you!"

    After a couple of years of this-I am nothing if not set in my ways-it occurred to me that it would be simple rachmanus to put her out of her misery. "You don't like the hat?" I asked.

    My daughter shuddered delicately.

    "What would you prefer me to wear?"

    "Plastic rainhats like everybody else."

    I have nothing against plastic rainhats in principle. The ones sold here are generously cut, shaped to some degree, and have a visor section. Besides being waterproof, they keep the wind from messing up your hair or sheitel, and in the winter they keep your ears warm. And they're cheap.

    To my mind, though, there's no dowdier item of dress. They conjure up frumpy, dumpy women whose idea of style has never progressed beyond Forties' head scarves, housedresses, and Wedgies, for those old enough to remember them.

    I'd rather get wet than wear a plastic rainhat. I'd rather drown than wear a plastic rainhat. Rainhats were quite definitely Out.

    In any case, I reasoned, after twenty years I had certainly amortized the cost of both hats.

    It was time to buy a New Hat.

    Now, in the sleazy shopping district near my house, there used to be several incongruously up-market little stores, among which was a delightful hat boutique. The window had seasonal displays featuring natty little numbers calculated to tug at my heart- and purse-strings, but I'd always been able to resist the lure of brims and trims. At last my moment had come!

    I planned carefully. First came the initial visit to reconnoiter. With both my winter "sweatercoat" and my cotton trenchcoat in mind, I spent an hour trying on every hat on display that had the slightest chance of matching either one. Most of them, even I had to admit, were so outstandingly awful that a shoebox on my head would have been more flattering, but there were several which I thought showed great promise.

    Then came the attack itself. I packed up my winter coat, my raincoat (the trenchcoat), and my daughter, and went for a purchase. My daughter was prepared to be flexible, but she took one look at the first hat I tried on-my favorite-and said firmly, "No way!" The second met the same fate. And the third. And the fourth.

    The saleslady was beginning to look warily at my daughter. "What about this one?" she asked in a cautious tone, offering something I could have lived with perfectly happily.

    "Hopeless!"

    "Maybe this-?"

    "Out of the question!"

    She didn't even have to open her mouth for the next one.

    "Definitely not!"-my daughter shattered her hopes.

    I didn't need to say anything.

    In desperation, the saleslady opened the deep drawers under the displays and began to rummage. "Have you considered a beret?" she asked tentatively, bracing herself for my daughter's pronouncement.

    "That's an idea," my daughter said thoughtfully.

    It was time for me to take a stand. "No, it isn't," I said. "I love berets, but ten years ago I brought one home and you all said I looked like a frei Israeli! I was lucky I got the shop to take it back."

    "Why not try it on?" urged the saleslady. She figured my daughter was her ally at this point.

    I put on the beret.

    Instantly my daughter changed sides. "Terrible! Take it off."

    The saleslady sagged.

    So did I. If we were down to berets, there wasn't much left.

    The saleslady went back to burrowing. After a while she emerged and said timidly, "There's this..."

    "This" was a flat felt cap of precisely the same shade of olive drab as my trenchcoat. Unlike many of the other hats, it could be worn in the rain (you recall this was the whole point of a hat in the first place), and it had a small visor which projected just enough to keep the rain out of my face. I thought it was ideal, but I didn't dare say so.

    I held it out to my daughter. "What do you think?" I asked noncommittally.

    She eyed it. "All right. Try it on."

    The moment of truth. The saleslady hovered nearby like a hopeful yellow jacket. I laid the hat reverently on my sheitel. The saleslady leaned over and made adjustments. Eyes narrowed, my daughter assessed the effect.

    "Let's see it with the coat."

    I took out the raincoat and put it on. The saleslady readjusted the hat. I thought it looked great, but... My daughter looked me up and down. The saleslady held her breath. So did I.

    "You can have that one," my daughter said offhandedly.

    The saleslady's back straightened. My fingers flew to my checkbook before my daughter could change her mind. Just before I put pen to paper, I turned to her. "You're absolutely sure it's OK?" I asked. (I always look for trouble.)

    "Yes. Go ahead." She had already lost interest.

    I paid, picked up the big carrier bag with the two coats and the small bag with the Hat, and made my escape. "You really like it?" I asked incredulously on the way home.

    "I can live with it," my daughter said magnanimously.

    What more could I ask?

    As soon as I got home, I wore the Hat in to show my neighbor. She said she really liked it. She's a wonderful friend-she'd have admired it if it had been an old rubber tire-but she did mean it.

    Later on, I went out for a walk in my beautiful new Outfit. Compliments? Of course I got compliments.

    "I like that hat," said one lady. "Can I see it?" I handed it over. "Oh, my, it's a Kangol!" she said with admiration.

    "Is it? That's nice," I said feebly. Just because I'm a fashion moron is no reason to flaunt it.

    "It's a very good brand," she explained.

    "Oh, good!" I shot back, trying for enthusiasm. "It keeps the rain off, too."

    She gave up.

    Somebody asked me if I'd started wearing a hat on my sheitel, like Satmarers and Vizhnitzers.

    "No, I'm only that frum in the rain," I said.

    Most people just said they liked the Hat, which was good enough for me, but from two entirely different ladies I had precisely the reaction that pleased me best.

    "When did you join the French Resistance?" they asked.

    I'd achieved it. I had another Period Costume-with my daughter's approval.

    But the best comment was yet to come.

    That evening, I ran over to my neighbor for something else entirely. Her husband had been working on the car in the front driveway earlier in the day, but now he was inside. He opened the door.

    "Tell me," he said as he let me in, "where did you get that hat?" I looked at him in astonishment. "I've been trying to find an old-fashioned flat motoring cap for years," he explained, "and everybody tells me they don't make them anymore...."

    Marlene Dietrich was nowhere to be found.

Henye Meyer is a freelance writer living in Manchester, England.