She Makes a Hat Fashion Statement

Catherine E. Walburger says it’s time for women to come out of the hat closet.

“Women wore hats until the 1960s, when hairdos changed and the hair look became so important,” said the Costa Mesa resident and businesswoman. “Later, women’s lib stepped in and women started throwing off anything that was a slave to fashion.”

For years, Walburger, 52, subscribed to the new fashion dictates, but she decided four years ago that it was time to wear hats again.

At first it was an uncomfortable feeling, since she often was the only one wearing a hat.

“I was self-conscious, but sometimes other women would walk over and say they wish they had worn their hat,” she said. “Men would compliment me.”

Despite the sometimes lonely feeling, Walburger felt good about wearing her always colorful and sometimes outlandish chapeaus.

“Career and businesswomen want to shift back to their full feminine self now that they proved they do anything a man can do,” she said. “We no longer need to talk ‘man to man.’ We can talk ‘woman to man.’ ”

Adds the onetime aspiring actress who studied at the Pasadena Playhouse: “When a woman wears a hat, something magical happens. It gives a woman good self-esteem and a good self-image. You feel good about yourself and can go out and accomplish everything better.”

Apparently, others feel that way.

One year ago, Walburger founded the “Hat Connection” for the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce with an initial membership of 23. It has expanded to 100 and the group’s monthly luncheon attracts 200 women, all wearing hats.

The Costa Mesa group has become known in other area cities and as far away as San Francisco, where the chamber there has inquired about forming a Hat Connection chapter.

“This hat movement is still in its infancy, but chambers of commerce across the nation will be forming chapters through us,” said Walburger, a business consultant and former professional photographer.

She also worked in television commercials for banks, photo processing, real estate and jewelry sales.

Along the way she raised two children.

“I put my creative energy into making sure their lives were filled with adventure and fun,” she said. “They are grown up now and doing well, which proves I made the right move.”

Walburger said she has 35 hats, but the figure hardly compares with others’. “One of our members has 300 hats,” said the 26-year wife of Wally Walburger, a print shop manager.

Hats are considered an investment, she said, something a woman keeps for a lifetime and something she can pass on.

Women in their 80s and 90s who attend the monthly luncheons often wear vintage hats while newer and more up-to-date hats are being worn by members in their 20s and 30s, she said.

While she plans to help other groups form Hat Connection chapters, Walburger still has her mind on the theater.

“When I was young, I wanted to be an actress,” she said. “I still want my chance.”

When he was 65, Tustin resident Carl F. Lindquist retired as manager of a loan office.

But he found after not working for a couple of years, “I had to have something to do,” and went back into the job market.

Now at 91, he has retired again, this time as president of the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Orange County.

Working a long time runs in his family. Brothers R. Jerome, 89, and Charles, 85, are still working, although brothers Glen, 81, and Tom, 78, are retired.