By Violet Li
Queen Robyn Wright’s coronation took place at Berwick Neighbourhood Centre on Sunday 26 November. Dressed in an elegant red dress, she was walked up to the royal throne by vice queens. A formal oath was made to uphold the spirit of Red Hat Society, concluding with a promise to misbehave and take the silliness seriously.
Then she was handed over an orb and a scepter, officially crowned, and cloaked in purple regalia. Everyone in the society came up, curtsied, sent congratulations, and pledged their service to the young queen.
The special ritual was heralded as a celebration of a new beginning for the women in this new society in Casey.
Robyn, a Berwick local, established the Casey Chapter of the Red Hat Society called Ladies with HATitude in October and now there are 20 members.
The Red Hat Society is known as a worldwide social club for women, especially those over the age of 50. Members are easily identifiable in their conspicuous red and purple outfits. They also take on whimsical royal titles like Countess Chocolate, Princess Munchkin, or Empress Jin.
“It is basically just about having fun. We don’t raise money. We don’t raise awareness or anything,” Robyn said.
“We will just go out for dinner. We will gather together to play silly games.”
Finding it hard to make new friends as an adult, Robyn started her own Red Hat branch after some research and consultation.
“I found that I, after a marriage breakdown, sort of had to start again, friendship-wise,” she said.
“I knew that there was a need for older women to form friendships.”
She put a comment on one of the local Facebook group pages, saying she was launching a social group for women over 40 and about 100 women responded saying they were also looking to make new friends.
Stunned by the amount of the response she received, Robyn was determined to go further and make her Chapter a vibrant space for women.
“I think at different ages, you have different needs. And by the time you’re 40, the kids are grown up, and a lot of us missed out on being silly because we’ve been busy raising children and doing the mum thing and working and everything,” she said.
“Now we’ve got some time on our hands, and we can go back to being silly and having some fun.
“It’s like playgroup for adults.”
Robyn said wearing bright red and purple enabled them to be not caring and just silly.
“We’ll go out everywhere wearing red and purple. We don’t care anyone who thinks red and purple don’t match,” she said.
Clyde North resident Kerry Eustace, who preferred her Red Hat title as Princess Munchkin, was one of the members of the Casey Chapter.
Being Queen twice in other Chapters, she crowned Robyn at the coronation.
Still highly active in the field, Kerry found the society personally more than a social group.
“It is a supportive group for women who are lonely,” she said.
She recounted that in her previous Chapter, there was one girl from the bush coming down to Melbourne with her husband and not knowing anybody.
“She was very shy. But she soon became very outgoing and much happier with her life because she had all these friends in the group,” she remembered.
“When we get older, we tend to be invisible and get overlooked.
“We want to be more visible, and now we are visible in the purple and red.”
Kerry recalled years ago, her old group went on the train into the city dressed as fairies.
“We’ve been into the Queen Victoria market and a lot of Chinese people said we would be lucky ladies because of the colours we were wearing,” she said.
One of the best compliments Kerry thought she had was when her group had dinner in a hotel in Ferntree Gully.
“This 17-year-old young man came up and said you ladies rock. He said his mother would love this, so we gave him a card,” she recalled.
“We stand up, and we make people smile.”
Kerry was confident that Robin had the enthusiasm and the energy to make a good group.
Now as a crowned queen, Robyn said she did have more responsibilities.
“My job is to make sure everyone’s having fun,” she said.
“I will make sure everyone’s included. And it doesn’t get too serious.”
The next event will be at Amstel Club in Cranbourne on 2 December. Ladies with HATitude has monthly events across Casey.
To join the group, email: ladieswithhatitude@mail.com
