The Sport Of Kings, The Hat of Blackwings – PPC

Pencils and Pop-Culture: The Sport of Kings, the Hat of Blackwings

Today and tomorrow mark the 138^th Annual Kentucky Derby, America’s tribute to the sport of kings. Now, there is nothing about me that could be described as “posh.” I don’t know anyone named Muffy or Bitsy. My driveway doesn’t have a ‘Benz; it has a battered white pick-up truck and the occasional cow (my neighbors don’t have the best fences or the most obedient livestock). And where I come from, fish eggs are used to bait hooks, not served on toast points.

Therefore, I’m not terribly invested on the goings-on of tomorrow (I don’t even like mint juleps), except for one thing: the hats. As last year’s Royal Wedding proved, Britain has America well and truly beat when it comes to outstanding chapeaux, and the Kentucky Derby is really the only day we have to redeem ourselves in the battle of headgear superiority.

The Derby’s website has already posted some pretty smashing shots of the hats on parade, but as I looked through them all, I decided something was missing: pencils.

Yeah, you heard me, pencils. Specifically Palomino Blackwings.

Now, I can hear the collective eye-roll from here, but we already know that I can make a pencil-inspired martini, so hats shouldn’t be that big of a stretch. As it happens, I have a couple of fascinators and small hats lying about from different events (last year’s Royal Wedding watching extravaganza, our annual family Oscar watching party – not posh as much as extremely, ridiculously silly), so I busted out the Blackwings and got to work.

Hat one was simply a matter of inserting pencils (unharpened, please – nothing less posh than poking someone’s eye out with your hat) into the loops of netting on headband (if I were going for a more permanent headpiece, I’d likely hold them in place with a drop or two of glue, maybe even some stitches). Hat number two involved placing erasers at evenly-spaced intervals around the brim, adding a few more feathers and tucking a Palomino Blackwing 602 in the back.

Am I going to be wearing these to a fabulous party? Not a chance. Heck, I’m not even wearing them in the photos – I enlisted a model (aka a stuffed bear) for that job. But who knows? Perhaps you have the panache to carry these off in public that I lack, or at least a very understanding group of friends who will humor you.

Though come to think of it, I don’t think the cow will judge me too much.