Fascinator (pronounced fas-uh-ney-ter)
(1) A person or thing that fascinates.
(2) A scarf of crochet work, lace, or the like, narrowing toward the ends, worn as a head covering by women.
(3) A lightweight, decorative head covering worn by women on certain occasions.
1740-1750: The construct was fascinat(e) + -or. Fascinate was from the Late Latin fascinātus, perfect passive participle of fascinō (enchant, bewitch, fascinate), from fascinum (a phallus-shaped amulet worn around the neck used in Ancient Rome; witchcraft). The -or suffix was from the Middle English -our, from the Old French -eor, from the Latin -ātor and reinforced by the Old French -or and its source, the Latin -tor & -tōrem. It was used to create an agent noun, often from a verb, indicating a person or object (often machines or parts of them) that do the verb or part of speech with which they are formed. In electrical engineering it has the specific use of being appended to the names of members of classes of components, especially those that have an extensive property name of the same root suffixed with -ance (eg to convey the sense that resistors possess resistance and inductors possess inductance). While the rule is not absolute, English generally appends the –or suffix where Latin would: to the root of a Latin-type perfect passive participle. For other words, English tends more to use the suffix –er although there are words which have evolved to use both (protester & protestor). In other cases, conventions have emerged such resistor which is the correct name for the use in electrical science whereas resister may elsewhere be used. Fascinator is a noun; the noun plural is fascinators.
The hat
Students of millinery seem inclined to trace the origins of the modern fascinator to the 1770s when, apparently on a whim, Marie Antoinette arranged clusters of ostrich and peacock feathers into her pomaded hair although images from antiquity suggest women have been using similar embellishments for millennia. The name was first adopted in the 1960s, a borrowing from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when a fascinator was an oblong head covering of silk, lace, or net or, in its more functional forms, of knitted or crocheted fine yarn; essentially a scarf. Taxonomically, milliners place modern fascinators under the genus of hats but definitely as a sub-set. Milliner Philip Treacy (b 1967) who has made a great many defines them as “…a small adornment for the head, attached to a comb, wire, or clip that perches on the head with no brim or crown." The term today seems to refer to anything attached to a clip, a headband, or a comb but which stops short of being a hat. One failed marketing ploy was the hatinator, a word invented in 2012 and said to be a cross between hat and fascinator, a hatinator being defined as something fastened on the head with a band (like a fascinator), but with the appearance of a hat. A clumsy attempt to create a market segment which already existed, women weren’t fooled.
Sister Princess Eugenie (Mrs Jack Brooksbank; b 1990, left) and father Prince Andrew (Duke of York (b 1960, right) looking at Princess Beatrice's (Mrs Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi; b 1988, centre) soon to be famous Philip Treacy fascinator, Westminster Abbey, London, 29 April 2011. Until she appeared wearing this construction, most photographs of Princess Beatrice had focused on her lovely sanpaku eyes. Opinion in the celebrity gossip magazines was divided on whether Eugenie's glance suggested envy or scepticism.
Worn by Princess Beatrice to the wedding of Prince William (b 1982) and Catherine Middleton (b 1982) the “distinctive” fascinator by Irish society milliner Philip Treacy (b 1967) was derided by some as a “ridiculous wedding hat” which seems unfair because it was a playful design which wasn’t that discordant upon the head on which it sat and was the only memorable headgear seen on the day, added to which it was symmetrical which is these days is genuinely a rarity in fascinators. It was later sold at a charity auction for US$131,560 (said to be a record for such creations) so there was that. Interestingly, some two years after the princess's fascinator made such an impression, the milliner gave an interview to the UK's Sunday Times in which he proclaimed: “The fascinator is dead and I’m delighted.” Asked why his view had changed, he explained: “The word fascinator sounds like a dodgy sex toy and what’s so fascinating about a fascinator? Mass production means that they became so cheap to produce that now they are no more than headbands with a feather stuck on with a glue gun. We’re seeing a return to proper hats.” Clearly, association with a "cheap" product worn by chavs was no place for a "society milliner" although the journalist did suggest the Mr Treacy's change of heart may have followed Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK and other places, 1952-2022) in 2012 banning fascinators from the Royal Enclosure at the Royal Ascot, meaning the creations were not but passé but proscribed. If thinking back to that day in Westminster Abbey, the journalist may have been tempted to suggest Mr Treacy write a book called: The Fascinator, My Part in its Downfall but any temptation was resisted. Despite the obituary, the fascinator seems alive and well and the fashion magazines provide guidance to help race-goers and others pick "a good one" from "a chav one".
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