Getty Images: Gareth Cattermole/Staff
Grayson Perry at the annual Serpentine Summer Party, Serpentine Gallery, London, June 2011.
Grayson Perry likes a sweet hat, preferably a bonnet made from bows, flowers, lace, satin, and ribbons. It’s something you might wear if you’re into the Japanese Lolita subculture—a look that’s overly cute and girly, generally made in pastel shades of pink, mauve, and aqua blue with a little Victoriana detailing thrown into the mix. Perry wears such hats when dressed as his alter ego, Claire. In this incarnation, Perry has been honing his sartorial skills for years; he borrowed a dress from his sister when he was ten and went out in public at fifteen wearing a wig and tennis shoes. Today, his fetish is out and loud; in 2005, he even reported on the Chanel couture fashion show for Spoon magazine dressed as Claire. In 2017, the Walker Gallery in Liverpool staged an exhibition called Making Himself Claire: Grayson Perry’s Dresses, which displayed twelve of his favorite outfits and bonnets—some designed by himself and others by students at Central Saint Martins in London. His headwear is not just decorative or crowd-pleasing, though. He revealed in an interview in 2005 that he is becoming slightly deaf, and “there’s nothing I can really do about it except continue wearing bonnets and hearing aids. At least the bonnets are pretty!” In 2014, when he was awarded the MBE and presented to Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace, he opted for a more conservative wide-brimmed and ostrich-trimmed “mother of the bride” hat instead of the usual Bo-Peep style.