Exhibit of Headwear from Around the World June 10, 2008

City of Lakewood Welcomes Exhibit of Headwear from Around the World
Headdresses, Helmets, Hats: Headwear from Around the World, an extraordinary collection of unusual and interesting headwear owned by Guest Curator Dr. Beverly Chico, will be exhibited June 10 through October 5, 2008, in the Radius Gallery at Lakewood’s Heritage Center, 801 S. Yarrow Street.
This exhibition includes over 225 headpieces on loan from the collection of Dr. Chico. The headgear, made from a wide variety of materials, including yak hair, straw, wool, metals, plastics, silks and felts, represents over 100 countries and ethnic cultures. These range from tribal communities such as the Philippine Kalinga and Amazon Basin Yanomami, with their reed and animal skull headdresses, to exotic bamboo or silk headwear of nineteenth-century imperial China, and leather plumed helmets of Victorian Europe, to fancy twentieth-century fashion toppers.
Dr. Chico’s interest in collecting headwear developed from her international travels and study of world history. According to Chico: “The head is vital for all human life since it contains the brain, seat of rational powers, four of the five senses, and is the most visible part of the human body. It is only natural that humans have put things on their heads that are important to their respective cultures.”
The items to be displayed, which have been gathered from five continents, have been organized into three basic categories. Headdresses include an elaborate gilded temple dancer’s headpiece from Thailand; a penitente’s hood from Seville, Spain; headrings from Rwanda; and a Bedouin woman’s head and face veils from Egypt. Helmets cover combat styles of several centuries from a seventeenth-century, iron-and-gold-leaf Japanese feudal protector, to a leather and beaver Napoleonic-era shako with its silver crest and plumes, from a nineteenth-century admiral’s bicorne and Scotch highlander’s feather bonnet to a U.S. Naval Academy hat tossed into the air by a 1982 female midshipman graduate. And other contrasts in Hats are based on fabrics such as the silk “kite high” dandies, woolen tams or berets, and cotton turbans. The top hat, invented in Florence, Italy, circa 1750, has a fascinating story. In 1798, haberdasher John Hetherington became the first man to publicly wear a shiny silk plush top hat in England. He was put on trial for breach of the peace, inciting to riot, and attempting to frighten timid people.
A reception for Headdresses, Helmets, Hats: Headwear from around the world will be free to the public, on Thursday, June 12 from 5 to 7p.m.; in the Radius Gallery at Lakewood’s Heritage Center, 801 S. Yarrow Street.
There will also be a lecture, From Birth to Burial: Ethnic Expressions of Religious Headwear; (fourteen cultures Asia, Middle East and Europe represented by headwear traditions brought to the U.S. and worn during life-cycle rituals) on Friday, September 26, 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $8 and can be purchased by calling 303-987-7850.
Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.. For more information and directions call 303-987-7850. Or visit us online at www.Lakewood.org.
The City of Lakewood's Heritage, Culture and the Arts Division provides experiential art, history and cultural programming through the Lakewood Cultural Center, Lakewood's Heritage Center and the Washington Heights Arts Center. The Division is funded in part by the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) - Metro Denver's unique commitment to its nonprofit art, scientific and cultural institutions.

Official Website: http://www.lakewood.org