Palm Beach Post Staff Writer LOUISVILLE, KY.
&mdash Hang on to your hats The finest-dressed women at the 135th Kentucky Derby today wouldn't dream of it. In a sure sign the public is brimming with economic confidence – or people have totally lost their heads – designers of Kentucky's most dazzling hats report that sales of their "artwork" are right on schedule, despite early fears that women were resorting to recycling hats from previous Derbys. And who can blame them, when the choices are shelling out as much as $1,700 for a 2009 Christine A. Moore vs. showing up in a 2008 Christine A. "It's the Derby, man," David McGuire said of the splurging. "It's just the way it is." McGuire, director of gallery sales at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft in Louisville, was at a Kentucky Oaks Day brunch this morning at a downtown hotel where hats go for $400 to $1,200.
"They will not go to the Derby without a hat," he said of the long-standing tradition at Churchill Downs. "We're in the money."