*Vanilla Beane, famously known as “D.C.’s Hat Lady,” reportedly died Sunday, Oct. 23, at age 103.
According to The Washington Post, Beane passed away in a hospital in Washington following complications from an aortic tear, her grandson, Craig Seymour, confirmed.
Beane designed and fabricated her one-of-a-kind hats at the Bené Millinery and Bridal Supplies shop on Third Street NW, per the report. The Post notes that her hats “were featured on postage stamps and in collections at the National Museum of African American History and Culture,” the outlet writes.
“Some people like real fussy hats,” she told The Washington Post in 2009. “Others like sophisticated hats, and a lot of people like simple hats. I try to please people regardless of their race or background.”
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Writer and poet Maya Angelou and Dorothy I. Height were some of the prominent Black women to wear Beane’s fashions. As reported by The Post, Beane’s shop also had White customers, including Sherry Watkins who owned 75 hats.
Watkins was the founder of the Rogue Hatters, a group of women who collected Beane’s hats, and Beane reportedly taught them the rules of hat-wearing.
“Don’t match the hat to the outfit,” Watkins recalled. “Just buy a hat you like and the outfit will come. Never wear your hat more than one inch above your eyebrows. Slant it to look more interesting and possibly even risque.”
Former Fox News host Chris Wallace named Beane “Power Player of the Week” in the summer of 2020. When he asked what made a proper church hat, she said “any hat that’s not too fancy, not too wide.”
Beane is survived by two daughters, Margaret L. Seymour and Linda R. Jefferson, seven grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren, accordign to The Post. Beane’s husband died in 1993. Their son, Willie G. Beane Jr., died in 1980.
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