fashion -

Thoroughly Modern Milliner

High-maintenance highlights. Six-hour straightening rituals. Daily washes with extract-from-Swaziland-infused shampoo.

You and your hair have quite the tiresome relationship.

Still, it’s not like you can really break up with your own follicles. You can, however, stash them out of sight for a little while.

Dina Pisani’s hats will take you back to the days when it wasn’t your hair — but rather what covered it — that made you chic. Her collection, Cha Cha’s House of Ill Repute, features lines inspired by Manhattan, past and present. The Cotton Club numbers are pastel-hued caps and cloches. (And dig those cheeky names: Peaches, Buttercup, Fancy Pants.) The LES hats, named for the designer’s neighborhood, are even bolder: wide-brimmed, fluorescent fedoras, adorned with handmade copper orchids and feathers. The all-black Gotham line just oozes pimp-daddy cool.

In fact, there’s something very gangster-and-his-moll about the whole affair.

Which may not be the relationship you’re looking for …

But should prove more interesting than that dye job that takes you from mahogany to chestnut.


Available online at chachashouse.com.