Getty Images: Jarnoux, Patrick
Truman Capote, date unknown.
Nicknamed a “pocket Merlin” by his friend Harper Lee, who based her To Kill a Mockingbird character Dill on him, Truman Capote had a magical taste in hats. Fully grown at 5 feet 3 inches, he was an iconic figure with a wide social circle and many parties to which he could wear his glamorous headwear. These included the bash of the century, his Black and White Ball, held in New York in 1966. On a day-to-day basis, Capote’s favored shape was the louche fedora, but as a handsome young man he loved wearing sailor hats askew. He revealed he wrote only in longhand and only while lying down, preferably while drinking tea or sherry and smoking a cigarette.