Derby Hats 2015!

There are a lot of terribly unsettling things going on in our world right now and while I think you should be reading, say, Ta-Nehisi Coates instead of Way Too Shay, I still feel like there is room in the day to take a break from pain and suffering to look at dumb hats at a fancy horse race. That's what WTS is here for: when you need a moment to be completely frivolous in the midst of making the world better.

Because the thing is: HATE minus the E is HAT and it's time for less hate and more hats.

This one is just plain lazy. Come on, girl. You can't just pin a silk flower on your beach hat and go to the races. Points for the necklace, though.

I saw fewer hats featuring odes to the vagina this year. Fortunately, this one gives us a statement about pubic hair alongside the focal point- let is grow, let it flow, adorn your beautiful flower.

This hat probably took a lot of time for all that detail, but here's the thing with derby hats - no one wants to get up close to read your hat. It's not like Wes Anderson is there combing the crowd looking for a new model set decorator.

This is the hat representation of peaking out from beneath a can-can dancer's skirt.

Don't look so smug, lady. You glued some Bratz dolls on a hat. Who hasn't done that at least once?

Are the horses supposed to be racing each other on this hat? If so, why are they going in different directions? If they are not racing each other, is this a commentary on the necessity of rest and/or perhaps and incisive condemnation of racing as sport?

That hat looks like an amuse bouche.

You can't just give yourself all the awards, lady. That's not how it works. This is why kids today expect praise for every fart.

Turns out you can make those hats look jerkier. Huh.

This hat is the floral centerpiece that made Bob Balaban nervous in A Mighty Wind.

I love it when hats wear hats! But wait: this hat is a picnic basket with a flamingo's head wearing a hat. My brain doesn't even know how to process this sight and that is glorious.

Best hat of the derby. I dare you to find a more intricate, elegant, and thematically-appropriate hat that invokes traditional headpieces of the Vegas showgirls of yesteryear. Brava, lady. You are awesome.