President Obama’s inauguration was historic on many levels, mostly because it happened in the past.
But when people think of Barack Obama’s inauguration, one thing will rise above all others. No, not the thrill of seeing America's first black president appointed into office. And not the huge number of well-wishers who flocked to Washington to see the ceremony. We’re talking, obviously, about Aretha Franklin‘s stupid hat.
Seriously. Aretha Franklin’s stupid hat has become the latest must-have item. Truly, Obama?s inauguration has paved the way for a bright future where anyone can look like a monumental bellend.
Now we’re no fashion experts, but we know the basic rules. Blue and green must never be seen, vertical stripes make you look thinner and massively obese women should all wear stupid hats with great big bloody enormous bows on them to draw attention away from their great big bellies.
It certainly worked for Aretha Franklin at Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony this week. Aretha Franklin – the queen of soul, the first black woman to appear on the cover of Time, the woman who soundtracked the civil rights movement, the greatest living inspiration to all competitive eaters around the world – was, it appears, invited to perform at Barack Obama’s inauguration to see if she could break the hotly-contested world record for shouting the word ‘ring’ as many times as possible to the tune of God Save The Queen.
But Aretha Franklin had other ideas. Sure, she was going to sing for the new president, but only if she could do it do it in a stupid hat. After all, Aretha Franklin is a legend. She won’t take any shit from Beyonce, so she certainly won’t take any shit from people who know the difference between a good hat and a spectacularly awful hat.
And, let’s be honest, it was a spectacularly awful hat. Logic dictates that nobody should ever wear a hat if the bow on the hat is actually larger than the wearer’s own head, not unless they want to look like the first prize in a Win A Vastly Overweight Tyler Perry Lookalike tombola.
However, since the inauguration something weird has been happening. People have actually decided that they liked Aretha Franklin’s stupid hat. They like Aretha Franklin’s stupid hat enough to flood its milliner Luke Song with orders for replicas. AP reports:
Song said he wasn’t prepared for the hundreds of calls requesting the hat with a Swarovski rhinestone-bordered bow. “We even have a lot of men calling to get it for their wives, mothers and grandmothers,” Song said… The design for Franklin’s hat came from two different hats at the store. “She walked through the shop and said ‘I want that bow (put) on that hat,'” he said.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is called style. Aretha Franklin always gets what Aretha Franklin wants. If she wants an inordinately big bow put on an otherwise normal hat, she gets it. If she wants to wear a coat made exclusively out of dead things, she gets it. And if Aretha Franklin wants to have an entire truckload of mashed-up food poured straight into her mouth through a funnel every day for her tea, then she gets that as well.
We’re not saying that Aretha Franklin does that, by the way. Just that she looks like she does. It’s a subtle difference.