Red Hat Society

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The Red Hat Society is a social organization for women over 50. The Society was founded in 1998 by Sue Ellen Cooper of Fullerton, California, and she serves as the organization's current Queen. As of October 2006 there are about 1.5 million registered members in over forty thousand chapters in the United States and thirty other countries.[1]

The Society takes its name from the opening lines of the poem Warning by Jenny Joseph, which starts:

“

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat that doesn't go and doesn't suit me.

”

The Red Hat Society fondly refers to itself as a "dis-organization" with the aim of social interaction, and to encourage fun, silliness, creativity, and friendship in middle age and beyond. The Society is not a sorority or a voluntary service club. There are no initiations or no fundraising projects.

A founder or leader of a local chapter is usually referred to as a "Queen". Members are called "Red Hatters". Members over fifty years old wear red hats and purple attire to all functions. A woman under age fifty may also become a member, but she wears a pink hat and lavender attire to the Society's events until reaching her fiftieth birthday.

Both Red and Pink Hatters often wear very elaborately decorated hats, and attention-getting fashion accessories such as a feather boa at the group's get-togethers. The Society's events vary depending on the chapter, but one of the more favored pastimes amongst most Red Hatters is attending or giving a tea party.

The organization has published four books: Red Hat Society: Fun and Friendship at 50 and Red Hat Society's Laugh Lines: Stories of Inspiration and Hattitude, Designer Scrapbooks the Red Hat Society Way (2005, Sterling), and The Red Hat Society Cookbook which features recipes submitted by members. Regional gatherings called "Funventions" are held several times a year, along with official Red Hat Society events.

The official Red Hat Society day is April 25 each year.

In 2006 the group successfully commissioned its own musical, entitled "Hats! The New Musical for the Rest of Your Life"

[edit] In popular culture

The Red Hat Society is paid homage to in one episode of the Simpsons, The Last of the Red Hat Mamas, wherein Marge joins a group called The Cheery Red Tomatoes. Also, in Brian Crane's comic strip Pickles (comic strip), the character Opal is a member of The Red Hat Society.