Flashback Friday

August 29, 2025 /

Yesterday’s post was a list of 13 things that I have given away recently. Today’s post is about something that I tried to give away, but couldn’t. Looking at the picture above, from an Easter Sunday years ago, notice the adorable hat I’m wearing. I love that hat. I will never wear it again, however, and Maya doesn’t want it, and no one on Buy Nothing wants it, and I can’t bear to think of it going to Goodwill and no one wanting it and it being used for stuffing or rags or something. It needs to remain a hat.

This is our beautiful girl, Genevieve, borrowing my hat back in 2009.

I remember buying this hat back in my mid 20s, in a little boutique on Sutter Street in San Francisco. I used to wear it in the early 90s, with a black babydoll dress, black tights, and dark purple (plum I guess) low suede heels*. OMG I felt chic in that little outfit, and I remember going dancing one night and my friend saying, “God Julie, I need to get a hat like that, you are adorable.” I felt adorable. I wish I had a picture of me in that outfit, though looking at the picture from our Easter, the one I was wearing there was pretty close. Different dress, different shoes, longer hair, same vibe. Scratch that. J in her mid 20s out dancing at a club in the City with friends is totally a different vibe than J relaxing in her in-laws’ back yard with her family in her mid 30s. I miss those purple shoes though, they were so cute.

*High heels, like stilettos or even pumps, would out you as from the suburbs or worse, the Central valley. We never wore them. Though a few years later when I stopped wearing a uniform and started wearing more business appropriate clothing, I had high heels. But this is not then.

Bonus Flashback Photo: Here’s a picture of Maya when she was 2 or 3, in a similar hat. I’m hoping this style will make a comeback, and I can give it to Maya or one of my nieces or something. For now, it doesn’t take up much room and will continue to live in my closet.

45 Comments

  • Birchie

    August 29, 2025 at 5:19 am

    Wow I don’t think I’ve seen a picture of Genevieve before and she is so beautiful. Mulder knew how to wear a tie like nobody’s business, and she had the same talent for hats.

    Decluttering is for junk. The hat is not junk. You’re right, it needs to go to someone special who will appreciate it. That person (or pup) will come along when the time is right.

    • J

      August 29, 2025 at 6:28 am

      Genevieve sure was a beauty, wasn’t she? Mulder was a keeshond, and Gen was a keeshond/sheltie mix. We got them from the same rescue. One of the employees at our vet’s office said that she got excited when there was another sheltie/kees mix coming in, expecting it to be as beautiful as her, and it just…wasn’t. LOL. She was such a good girl.

  • Nicole MacPherson

    August 29, 2025 at 5:22 am

    Why can’t you wear that hat again? I bet you’d look adorable in it. In the first photo it looks black, but I see it’s purple. I think you should still bust it out when you can, why not? That outfit does sound chic. The 90s were such an interesting time for fashion. I remember an outfit that I adored, and it’s going to sound insane, so buckle up. Black blazer. Black tights. Black turtleneck. Black army boots. RED PLAID HOT PANTS. I wore that on the first day of school in grade 11 at a new school and I felt like the coolest girl that ever lived.

    • J

      August 29, 2025 at 6:30 am

      LOL, YOU WERE THE COOLEST GIRL THERE! I love that outfit. I used to love all black with a pop of something. Black leggings, black top, black shoes, black jacket, neon pink socks. Not as cool as red hot pants though!

  • nance

    August 29, 2025 at 6:05 am

    I feel like Birchie stole my comment. She is so smart. Wait…that sounds immodest.

    Anyway, that hat should live on your dresser. Go buy a head for it someplace, and put the photos from this post in a double frame next to it. Also, Dr. Ted is so handsome. Still.

  • Jenny

    August 29, 2025 at 6:14 am

    I think you should keep the hat and wear it!!! But even if you don’t wear it, I can see why you wouldn’t want to just give it Goodwill. Keep it for now, and I’ll bet a good recipient will come along.

  • PocoBrat

    August 29, 2025 at 8:23 am

    I see everyone has said it already, J! I too think it’s perfectly fine to keep things around because they’re beautiful–not EVERY thing has to be utilitarian. My criterion is William Morris’s “”Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”. And your hat is actually both!

    • J

      August 29, 2025 at 8:49 am

      I suspect I would need an entire new outfit. And really, I think that’s what happened the first time…I had the hat, then bought the rest of it.

  • StephLove

    August 29, 2025 at 11:44 am

    I had a babydoll dress in the 90s, when I was in my 20s. It was gray and I bought it the week after Clinton was elected to his first term. I was working for a non-profit that registered low-income African-Americans to vote, techincally non-partisan, but not exactly. I remember the happiness of that week so well and I always associated the dress with that.

    It stayed in my closet long after I’d stopped wearing it and then when North was 15 they wanted it, so I gave it to them, and they wore it for a couple years, but I just noticed it in their near-empty closet, so I guess they are done with it, too. Even so, I don’t think I could get rid of it.

    • J

      August 29, 2025 at 12:19 pm

      It’s funny how items can evoke such strong emotions and memories, isn’t it? Keep the dress, is what I’m saying. I’m glad it had a second life with North!

  • Lisa’s Yarns

    August 29, 2025 at 2:12 pm

    Keep that hat! Keep wearing it! You wear hats so well! I have tried and failed to make hats work for me. I wear baseball hats when running and at the pool. I want to be the person with the big floppy hat at the pool and I just can’t find one that looks right!

  • K @ TS

    August 29, 2025 at 10:40 pm

    I love that hat, and I love 30s Julie (and Genevieve too of course) in that hat! I say buy yourself some tickets to a theater show or play, put on a black outfit, and rock the hat to the show. It is the perfect kind of venue where you can still rock it without feeling self conscious. I am 100% a baseball cap person, and in my 20s I tried to be a cool hat (pageboy, fedora) person, but it didn’t stick. However, when I decluttered all of my stuff, I still had that pageboy hat (okay, okay, I still had two of them) so I took photos of myself wearing all my hats (I also had probably a dozen old b-ball caps) and then gave them away. I think you have inspired me to do a post about that! Happy weekend!

    • Tamara

      August 30, 2025 at 7:33 am

      I think this is the perfect idea – theatre is the place for this hat to live on and be admired. Love the remembered quote from your friend – it is like the first line of a great story.

  • coco

    August 30, 2025 at 1:49 am

    I love that pic of you with hat, your look, posture, sooooo pretty and elegant! keep it just for the sake of memory keeping. that’s what I sometimes do, I don’t need the thing, but i like how it reminds me of an era.

  • Tobia | craftaliciousme

    August 31, 2025 at 2:36 am

    Isnt it fun that some outfits are so stuck in our heads and we keep coming back to them and wish we could wear them again. So fun. That hat is so 90s. But with current fashion who knows maybe next year you are having the ultimative vintage accessoire.

  • Daria

    August 31, 2025 at 11:41 am

    Vintage!!!! That stuff is coming back! I love that picture on the front, with you wearing the hat. Milder is also cute in it 🙂 and the picture of Maya is just so sweet.
    When I came to America I stopped being a hat person… in Russia I wore hats because I was cold. In NJ… not so much.

    • J

      August 31, 2025 at 3:30 pm

      I hope the hat comes back, for sure!

      The dog is Mulder’s big sister, who died 3 years before he was born, Genevieve, isn’t she beautiful?

  • Diane

    September 3, 2025 at 9:30 am

    OMG – I had a floppy burgundy velvet hat with a huge flower on it in the early 2000s. I LOVE wearing hats and wear them all the time. Hats are the best.
    I once worked for this little troll of a director who wouldn’t let me wear hats in rehearsal. Said it made him feel like I was about to leave the room. I mean given how petty and troll like he was, I probably would have been happy to leave the room.
    All to say, you should wear the hat. I think fall is the perfect time for that hat.

  • Gina

    September 3, 2025 at 5:20 pm

    Joining in on the love for that hat! I wish people wore hats more like that these days and not just baseball caps or beanies. A Belly concert would be the perfect place to break that back out in public.

    And Maya looks so cute in hers! I adore little kids in hats! Mine would usually just rip hers off, though, so I stopped buying them, lol.

  • ernie

    September 3, 2025 at 8:29 pm

    I love everything about this post. You do look so cute. I’m glad you’re keeping this hat that should remain a hat. This post almost slipped by me, and I’m glad I went back and spotted it. Things have been a little out of hand on the home front – interesting timing with the adoption on Monday, but here we are. The photo of Maya is so so cute.

    I wore a hat to my rehearsal dinner and my girls now are like, WHAT? WHY? My mom and I brought all of my wedding attire from my condo to the hotel downtown and in typical fashion, we didn’t allow enough time and I ended up not having time to do my hair, or something. I think I planned to wear it anyway, but I was like PHEW.