Love Story to My Burgundy Hat

When I was a child, I used to raid my grandmother’s closet. I enjoyed a lot wearing her clothes, looking myself in the mirror and pretending I was her, a classy, elegant and brilliant woman. I’ve always loved vintage clothes, before knowing that one day, they would have become “trendy”, because I’m fascinated by anything that comes from different times and places…We can truly ‘smell’ all the stories they went through and bring them always with us by wearing them! What an incredible sensation thinking I’m not just Federica, but also the person or the people that wore those clothes too, their feelings, their memories!

But one day, I particularly fell in love with something I found by chance on the highest shelf of her closet: a burgundy hat. Since the very first moment I saw it, I decided it would have been always mine. But on the same shelf, my hands found a piece of paper… It was an envelope. I was so surprised that I let my curiosity get away with me and I opened it. There was a letter inside, and some really nice words:

“Dear girl with the burgundy hat,

The first time I saw you in that noisy bar, I noticed you, vivacious and elusive girl , you couldn’t blend in. In that exact moment, I already knew I would have loved you, and I would have done anything to get you. I would have kept on looking for your hat in a huge crowd until I could find you.

After 10 years, I can say I finally have you in my life, and I can’t love you more.

Yours,

Francesco”

My grandfather wrote this letter to her 10 years after they met for the first time. Then they got married and he wrote these lines to celebrate one of his best memories, when he got to meet her. He passed away around ten years ago, my grandmother couldn’t stand living without him, and one day, some years later, she went to sleep forever. But I still wear my burgundy hat. I always bring it with me, I could never forget it somewhere else. When people say: “Oh, you look beautiful with that hat, it’s just perfect on you!”, it warms my heart to hear that, because it’s more than a vintage fashion garment… It’s the tale of eternal love, the purest form of love I’ve ever seen. And love, the real one, never goes out of style.

by Federica Morolla