Fascinator

A more repellent personality would be hard to imagine, and yet Hedda Gabler is one of the eternal fascinators of the world stage.

Westminster Abbey was peppered with everything from neat pillbox hats to netted fascinators.

Why, for example, was Lady Gaga the first act? Surrounded by pink ostrich feathers and wearing a fascinator that looked like a feather quill atop her head, she put on her best French accent to sing Mon truc en plumes (originally by Zizi Jeanmaire) but it still looked like a scrappy, tacky, riverbank cabaret by an American pop star.

On a recent night when I visited, a group of girls had taken over an entire section, all of them wearing black fascinators as if attending a funeral. The hostess explained that it was a young woman named Mallory’s “RIP to my 20s” birthday dinner.