Over time, the annual Central Park Conservancy Frederick Law Olmsted Awards Luncheon, which benefits Central Park and is held in the Park’s Conservatory Gardens, has become known as “the Hat Lunch” or “that Hat Lunch.”
Why “that Hat Lunch”? The name comes from the now de rigueur conceit that all attendees don their finest headgear, often extravagant confections created specially for the occasion. The ritual extends from well before the time of the first Conservancy Lunch, back in 1983. By then, as now, most — men and women alike — went about hatless.
Michon Schwartz 
Martha Stewart 
Arlene Bascom 
Saba Nwankpah 
Jazzmobile’s Robin Bell-Stevens 
Barbara Scott 
With Joshua Kami of Ladies of Madison Avenue Instagram page 
Philanthropist Jean Shafiroff, Major Patron of South Hampton Museum of African American Museum. 
Damaris Hernandez, Melissa Murray, and More Ike Williams
For centuries before that, this was not the case. Hats were mandated for almost all events except evening parties and concerts held after 6 o’clock. When John and Jacquline Kennedy moved into the White House in 1961, their taste and sense of style changed everything almost overnight. Hats, once worn to the grocery store and at ball games, were out, even in Harlem. Until recently, they persisted in the Black community, for Sunday church, at weddings, and at funerals, but gradually, like the fading necktie, hats are seen less and less.
Because hats are no longer normal attire nowadays, the affluent ladies attending this fundraiser love putting them on, at least for one day. But indicative of their increasing obsolescence, for some, the minute lunch ends, their hats come off.