Clad in Red and Purple, They Laugh Off Old Age

As gauntlets go, it seemed a fairly benign one.

In 1961 a youngish (29) English poet wrote a poem that began: “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.” And with that, Jenny Joseph unwittingly drew a line in the dirt for a less-serious old age for women determined not to regret the sobriety of their youths.

“Warning,” Joseph’s short poem chronicling a woman’s old age with frivolity and fun, has since been printed on mugs, posters and T-shirts. In 1996 the BBC took a poll, and “Warning” was the nation’s favorite poem.

As if that weren’t enough, in the last few years, so-called Red Hat societies--roughly 2,000 social gatherings of women of a certain age who, like the woman in the poem, wear red hats and purple dresses as a badge of fun--have sprung up around the world.

The Red Hat Society is hosting its international convention in Chicago in April. Activities will include a pajama-party breakfast, shopping and panels on communication and success.

The first society was started a few years ago in Arizona by a woman who was taken with Joseph’s poem. Red Hat societies are notoriously free of rules, but members must be at least 50 and must wear red hats and purple dresses to their public gatherings (often held in restaurants). Younger members--”princesses in training”--may attend, but their uniform is pink hats and lavender dresses.

Traditionally Red Hat societies limit their membership to fewer than 20 women, so the conversation can flow freely. Judi Tanguay, who leads a group based in West Hartford, Conn., started it with her closest friends, a bevy of women who vacationed together for years.

“When I turned 50 I gave everybody a copy of the poem, and I asked that everyone bring something purple when we went out to dinner,” said Tanguay, now 52. Later she saw a clip on television about the Red Hat societies.

“It was just tailor-made,” Tanguay said. “I think it’s a great way to tell people that you really don’t have to grow up, and you can let that little kid inside of you come out. It’s perfectly fine.”

They have dubbed themselves the Beguiling Red Hat Biddies, a name rooted in Tanguay’s friends.

“We were on one of our trips at a B&B; dining room, and a senior bus was in there,” Tanguay said. “We got all silly talking about the blue hairs, and ‘Are we going to be like that, too?’ We decided that we’d be biddies and keep doing this for as long as we can.”

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For more about Red Hat societies, visit www.redhatsociety.com.