Fruit hat

For the British dessert, see Fruit hat (pudding).

Carmen Miranda in The Gang's All Here (1943 film)

A fruit hat is a festive and colorful hat type popularized by Carmen Miranda and associated with warm locales. This type of hat has been worn by fashionistas, in films, by comic strip characters, and for Halloween.

History

A fashion report in Los Angeles Times from 1895 called the use of mendiant the "newest trimming" for hats, and noted that hats were "tipped far over the eyes". The Chicago Tribune reported on fruit ribbons, along with feathers, flowers, and frills, as trim for Easter hats. A report on artificial fruit used on hats was in a 1918 edition of the New York Times. Fruit and vegetable trim on "gay hats" featured in the first millinery show of the season at New York's Saks Fifth Avenue in 1941, and overshadowed flowers. Mendiant is a traditional French confection usually prepared during the Christmas season, and composed of a chocolate disk studded with nuts and dried fruits representing the four mendicant or monastic orders of the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans and Carmelites, where the color of the nuts and dried fruits is used refer to the color of monastic robes. Tradition dictates that raisins are used for the Dominicans, hazelnut for the Augustins, dried fig for Franciscans and almond for Carmelite. Lil Picard, a millinery designer for the custom-made department of Bloomingdale's, sought inspiration from nature for her hats and while on vacation "listening to the birds, gazing through the lacy outlines of foliage and watching the ripening fruits, she dreamed of trimmings."

Fruit hats in film

Carmen Miranda in The Gang's All Here (1943)

Brazilian "bombshell" Carmen Miranda "made a habit of wearing exotic headdresses/hats often adorned with fruit" and appeared as a singer named Dorita in the 1943 movie The Gang's All Here. The movie included "The Girl in the Tutti Frutti Hat" musical number with women "dressed in frilly tropical attire who manipulated giant bananas at the whims of legendary choreography Busby Berkeley". One reviewer described it as "like a male hairdresser's acid trip".

Use in marketing

The Chiquita Banana logo was created for United Fruit Company in 1944 by Dik Browne, who is perhaps best known for his Hägar the Horrible comic strip. In advertising of the 1940s, her voice was supplied by vocalist Patti Clayton followed by Elsa Miranda, June Valli and Monica Lewis. The concept was created by a BBDO advertising team headed by Robert Foreman with the song lyrics written by Garth Montgomery and music composed by Ken MacKenzie.

The company later became Chiquita Brands International and would use a banana wearing a fruit hat headdress on its logo for decades. The original Chiquita Banana advertisement was produced by Disney Studios and ran in movie theaters.

The inspiration for the Chiquita Banana's hat and character came from Carmen Miranda and her famous fruit hats. A decade before the Miss Chiquita Banana character was born, Carmen Miranda was seen wearing her trademark fruity hats in a number of films.

The banana was transformed into a woman by artist Oscar Grillo, creator of the Pink Panther, in 1987 to reflect "the image the public had of Miss Chiquita as a real person."