The family that loved hats

The oh-so-stylish Malin wearing one of her many hats. Photo by David Lansing.

Earlier this year, Malin celebrated one of those big birthdays with a big 0 behind it and I volunteered to make a video for the party. Her husband, Chris, gave me literally thousands of photos to sift through for the video. Shots of her growing up as a child in Sweden, coming to California as an exchange student, her courtship and marriage to Chris, then the three babies that followed. When I’m putting videos like this together, I’m always looking for some sort of theme running through the photos, something I can hang a story on. With Malin, it was hats. Over the years, there were shots of her wearing Swedish naval hats and Viking horns; fur hats, felt berets, and wool caps; big, floppy JackiO straw numbers and peculiar British hats with feathers and such.

I thought what I’d do is interview Sally, her wonderful, stylish mother-in-law, and rather tongue-in-cheek, have Sally point out that as a mom-wife-volunteer-teacher-Swedish advocate, Malin obviously wore a lot of hats in the family. And intersperse Sally’s interview with dozens of quick shots of Malin over the years wearing various hats. But the video got to be a bit long as I was putting it together and I had to scrap the hat idea.

What I didn’t stop to consider when I was thinking of Malin and hats is that her husband, Chris, also has a fondness for odd hats. As you can see from this photo I took of him last year when we went birding in San Blas. If you look closely, you’ll see that he’s actually wearing two hats: a baseball hat and then a floppy straw number. It’s rather striking, don’t you think? Perhaps some fashion designer will see this photo and all the male models will be wearing double hats during fashion week next spring.

Chris just might start a new trend in the fashion world with this double hat look. Photo by David Lansing.

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2 comments

  1. Barbara Stoner’s avatar

    Birding? You go birding? Ever thought of doing a Big Year? (or was that only a movie?)

  2. David’s avatar

    That’s funny, Barbara, we were just talking about that movie (and doing a Big Year) at dinner the other night. Malin’s father, Boo, is here from Sweden, and one year he spotted something like 87 different species of birds just in Sweden. I’d love to do a Big Year.

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