Tag archives: millinery

Hats Off to These Winners
By Richard Mineards   |   August 6, 2024

A positive profusion of creative and colorful tony tête toppers packed the stands and cabanas as the Santa Barbara Polo Club celebrated its 17th annual Ladies Day. As usual I had the onerous task of judging the mélange of magnificent millinery, including the largest, most colorful and most creative, and the day couldn’t have been […]

Hats Off to Lotusland
By Richard Mineards   |   October 31, 2023

Millinery madness took root at Montecito’s 37-acre botanical Eden Lotusland when it launched a new exhibition Madame’s Millinery Masterpieces: Hats Through History focusing on the wardrobe of the late owner, Polish opera singer Ganna Walska, who died in 1984 aged 96. The six-times-married diva was acquisitive with an impressive jewelry collection, a large selection of […]

A Millinery Match at the Polo Fields
By Richard Mineards   |   August 1, 2023

A profusion of creative and colorful tony tête toppers packed the stands at the Santa Barbara Polo Club for the annual Ladies Day. As usual, I had the difficult job of judging the mélange of magnificent millinery, having learned my “craft” donning my top hat and tails attending the Royal Enclosure at Royal Ascot races […]

Millinery Match in the Making
By Richard Mineards   |   July 25, 2023

It’s that time again! For the 16th year I have the onerous task of judging Santa Barbara Polo Club’s hat contest on Sunday at the spectacular Carpinteria locale after launching its high goal season with the Left Coast’s top tournament, the Netjets, USPA Pacific Coast Open on September 3. The three categories for the mélange […]

15th Annual Millinery Match
By Richard Mineards   |   August 16, 2022

A sea of colorful hats proliferated in the stands at the Santa Barbara Polo Club when, for the 15th consecutive year, I had the onerous task of judging the mélange of magnificent millinery. Sorting out the torrent of tony tête toppers and choosing three winners was not the easiest of jobs given the sheer number […]

Hats Off to You!
By Richard Mineards   |   September 7, 2021

For the 15th year my millinery skills, garnered from attending the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, England, where outrageous hats are de rigueur for ladies attending the centuries’ old races attended by Queen Elizabeth, for more than four decades, were called on by the Santa Barbara Polo Club to judge the annual hat contest during the […]