Greetings! Vivian created her very first cartoon horse while awaiting the outcome of several last minute Committee meetings in Washington D.C. that could impact the safety of our horses. Christmas was just around the corner, and she was miserable and wanted to go home.

To distract herself from her mood, she got on the computer and started playing around in Photoshop, until at last she had what she wanted — a cartoon horse — to help raise money to benefit horses, and to make people laugh of course. She named him Curtis. Isn’t he handsome? What is it about “first borns”? Sigh.

Curtis was, and still is, a huge success, and became the beginning of what would eventually evolve into a large family of hat wearing cartoon horses.

Vivian was pressed to design more, which she did. In order to save precious time, she created what she eventually named the “classic hat” silhouette (see below), which would be fast and easy to design for. She named the first one Eve.

As of this writing Vivian has designed more than 70 classic hats.

Recently she was asked by Classic Hat Fans to do a series, here on the blog, of people’s top favorite classic hats of all time.

“I was thrilled to be asked. I am even more thrilled to do it. There are some very, very pretty classic hats. This will be their big moment to shine!

I chose fifteen designs altogether. We will blog three classic hats per week throughout the five weeks of August. Stay tuned so you do not miss out on any of the fun.”

Bye for now. Love, Vivian and Hattingdon.

Updated 07.28.23.