Last week Tuesday (Prinsjesdag) was after all ‘the budget day’ and it was all about policies and where politicians stand. Meanwhile, on a less important note, the day is always an exciting one for hat makers and I want to talk a bit about my experience as a hat maker in relation to Prinsjesdag.
Long time ago,a Dutch bank did an interview with me for their Instagram feed. It was just before Prinsjesdag and they wanted to feature a small business in hat making. So we met and the post went up on their profile.
The first comment on the post was in effect of ‘Isn’t it better if we bought our Prinsjesdag hats from a Dutch hat maker or am I missing a point?’
I had by then lived longer as ‘a foreigner’ than ‘a native’ and the comment was not surprising nor upsetting but somehow left an impression/ prejudice on me that people who congregate for that event might have such preference.
Since then I have had a few orders for Prinsjesdag hats every year, proving that my impression was not right but this incident was enough make me less keen to promote my hats for traditional events such as Prinsjesdag, to be honest. I was like, ‘K, bye!’.
So what happened this year was very exciting because it confirmed the following.
If someone likes a hat, s/he’d buy it wherever the hat maker comes from.
If a foreign hat maker happens to make a hat you like, you may even like the fact that the ‘bloody foreigner’ lives/works near you.
So restricting people based on backgrounds (cultural/economical/gender etc) never enrich our society, or your hat collection at least.
Politicians who fight to break such barriers and work relentlessly towards equality for diverse members of the society are good politicians.
And it is such an honour that one politician campaigning for such society found me and wore my hat to make a statement. And the lady’s mentioning my name made me feel that I sure had my little space within the community which I feared to be too conservative to accept my presence and my hats.
The day was therefore indeed about the politics even hat wise and It was an inspiring day for me as a tiny member of the grassroots believing in certain values to have an opportunity for representation.
OK I was going to talk about the hat, not politics. It was made by separately blocking offcuts of felts and put together to form a swirly striped hat. Took me ages but I believe good things take time. Some political issues can’t wait that long but we simply can’t give it up because of that.
Now indeed, it seems impossible to separate that hat and politics. Seemingly it was indeed a Prinsjesdag hat. And I would like to thank again my customers including Ms Sylvana Simons who trusted me for their hats, not only for Prinsjesdag. And I am grateful for supportive presses who awarded Ms Simons ‘de beste hoed bokaals’. And last but not least, a big shout out to JeanPaul Paula for his activism and always calling me to his table and saving a comfy chair for me. He always makes me feel worthy as the tiniest part of his activism and makes sure I don’t give up. Thank you.
Before signing off, my sincere wish is that it would be fantastic if there was a super serious hat competition on Prinsjesdag so whoever wins the hat bokaal could write one legislation and it comes in effect as a royal decree..!
