Easter hats and bonnets draw thousands to mid-town Manhattan

01/25

Caption

A man wearing bizarre yellow and black headgear, outfit and makeup. A number of hats seen were quite bizarre.

02/25

Caption

A man in bright outfit with a rabbit in a hat.

03/25

Caption

A woman with a hat depicting a ship under sail.

04/25

Caption

A man in ecclesiastical headgear and bright makeup.

05/25

Caption

A couple in elaborate hats, with their dogs, which wear equally elaborate hats.

06/25

Caption

Billy Little, a New York performer, wearing an outfit and hat in honor of Michael Jackson.

07/25

Caption

A man dressed as a woman, wearing a sculptured purple gauze hat with pink flowers.

08/25

Caption

A couple in traditional outfits of the 1930s. He wears a homburg, and she a wide-brimmed straw covered in red and white roses.

09/25

Caption

A man with his coat sleeve covered in butterflies.

10/25

Caption

Three women wearing elaborate floral hats by New York's Tipsy Topper.

11/25

Caption

A couple in traditional outfits of the early 1900s.

12/25

Caption

Mother and daughter in cowgirl outfits, riding on their scooters.

13/25

Caption

Two men dressed as dandies, one in orange, the other in magenta.

14/25

Caption

Two smiling women in elaborate straw hats in complementary red and green.

15/25

Caption

Two women wearing hats that harken to the 1940s.

16/25

Caption

A woman wearing a straw hat with the appearance of a flower garden.

17/25

Caption

A woman wearing a hat and stole adorned with red feathers.

18/25

Caption

A man wearing a tall hat including a nesting goose and many eggs.

19/25

Caption

A woman wearing an outsized hat covered in butterflies.

20/25

Caption

A woman in a large hat adorned with several varieties of fresh flowers.

21/25

Caption

A woman with a bee on her bonnet. Many of the hats in today's parade featured birds, bugs and flowers.

22/25

Caption

A woman in a hat and veil reminiscent of the 1940s.

23/25

Caption

A woman in a diminutive red hat poses for photos with a man wearing a newspaper suit and hat.

24/25

Caption

A couple sporting hats featuring birds, both wild and caged.

25/25

Caption

A man in a top hat on Fifth Avenue. Traditional hats such as his were well represented.

Report current story

New Yorkers turned out by the thousands to wear, to be seen wearing, or to watch others wear hats of all descriptions in the annual Easter Parade and Bonnet Festival on Easter Sunday on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, between 49th and 57th Streets.

New Yorkers turned out by the thousands today to wear, to be seen wearing, or to watch others wear hats of all descriptions in the annual Easter Parade and Bonnet Festival, which took place on Easter Sunday on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, between 49th and 57th Streets.Taking it’s cue from a 20th-century tradition, and from Irving Berlin’s 1933 hit song “Easter Parade”, today’s turnout, while it had some adherents to the Easter tradition of post-church service fashion parade, had other, less reverent overtones as well.

I saw men wearing top hats, bowlers, boaters, homburgs, trilbys, and even rabbit ears, papal mitres and women’s bonnets. The variety of headgear worn by the women was equally wide-ranging. Some themes could be distinguished: traditional period costume, ranging from late Edwardian through 1940s; ornithological, entomological, scenic, pascual and floral. I might add a final category, the strange.

In all, the turnout included more spectators than hat-wearing participants, but all seemed very happy to be out on such ca fine, sunny afternoon enjoying the spectacle and the company of others.