Ladies in Red (and Purple)

By Carol Band

Rapidly Growing Phenomenon Offers Mature Women Carefree Fun and Friendship

You’ve probably seen them in restaurants, at resorts or marching in your hometown parade – grown women decked in outlandish attire, laughing, being outrageous and having a ball. Maybe you’ve wondered if, with their red hats and purple clothing, they are part of an elite club, a secret sorority or a wild girl gang. Ask them and they will tell you that they are a little of each. They are The Red Hat Society, a self-described “disorganized organization” of women who are celebrating life after age 50, and their numbers are growing by more than 5,000 a week.

When Red Hat Society founder Sue Ellen Cooper, now affectionately known as the Exalted Queen Mother, gave into a moment of madness and bought a red hat in a consignment shop in 1997, she had no idea that it would kick off an international movement.

“I bought my first hat on a whim. It was something that was totally unlike me,” she recalls.

Inspired by Jenny Joseph’s poem “Warning,” which begins “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple with a red hat,” Cooper began giving friends a red hat and a framed copy of the poem as a 50th birthday present. Then one afternoon, she and her friends got together and wore their red hats and purple outfits to lunch. That was in 1998. The local news sent a photographer and ran a story. The national wire services picked it up and The Red Hat Society became a full-blown phenomena.

Fun and Friendship

The appeal of The Red Hat Society can be summed up in two words, fun and friendship, Cooper says. “We’ve raised our children, worked for decades, been wives and mothers and had careers. The Red Hat Society gives us a recess from adulthood. We can dress up in feather boas, play the kazoo and have a good laugh.”

And the women find that having fun is even better when there are others to share the good times. A supportive group can make it easier to shed the outer adult and embrace the inner imp.

“I was bored,” explains Janet Donohue, founder of a Red Hat chapter in Denver known as the Colorado Sizzlers. “I called a friend who was a Red Hat member in Dallas and she talked about how much fun they were having. When I looked into joining a local chapter, they were all filled. So I started my own.”

In fact, the Colorado Sizzlers filled up fast. “We have 32 members,” Donohue says. “I don’t want it to get any larger because it’s hard to make restaurant reservations with really big groups.”