By Margaret Bauer
Those checking out downtown galleries in the Loft District during the second week of June may also catch a sight strongly resembling performance art—a flock of red-hatted, purple-suited women. Approximately 6,000 of these flamboyant folk are expected to rumble into town June 7–11 for “Gateway to Glitz,” the Red Hat Society’s fifth international convention. Originally scheduled to converge on New Orleans, the Red Hat Ladies rerouted themselves to America’s Center, in downtown St. Louis, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
The Red Hats have more than 1,000 chapters throughout Missouri—one for almost every town in the state. All of those chapters need names, and the “Red Ladies” and “Red Hats of [insert town name here]” get old pretty quickly. So a startling number of these gals have differentiated themselves with seamy names that wouldn’t be out of place on a burlesque marquee: the Foxy Red Hot-Flash Floozies or the Red and Sassy Ladies (subtitled “We Do It In Hats”).
To help you tell them all apart, we’ve put together a quick list of some of the more memorable chapter names. See whether you can match them to their description ... or the description that we guessed might fit.
Chapter Name
1. Ladies of the Red Dragon
2. Red Hot Postal Mamas
3. Ladies of Altitude
4. Lizzie’s Queen Mums and Queens of Sorts
5. Sophisticated Ladies Under Tremendous Stress
6. Ruby Sisters
7. Cardinal Sinners
8. Jolly Swingers
Theme or Profession
A. St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission
B. Could the acronym be a clue?
C. Excommunicated?
D. Fans of Adultfriendfinder.com?
E. Archon science-fiction convention attendees
F. U.S. Postal Service employees
G. St. Elizabeth’s Hospital employees
H. Former flight attendants
Answers: 1.E., 2.F., 3.H., 4.G., 5.B., 6.A., 7.C., 8.D.
Little Women
Some Red Hat ladies are big. Some are small. Some are so small, you can fit four of them in a hat ... with a biscotti-toting tea cart. For those who can only take the boa-twirling, kazoo-honking, chromatically chal-lenged divas in small doses—which is basically everyone who isn’t a Red Hat lady—the Miniature Museum of St. Louis is rolling out its really little red carpet to the larger-than-life ladies this summer with an exhibition of dinky dames in red and purple, running through July 16. It’s menopause in miniature!
—Matthew Halverson
