Hat Lingo - The Toque

What's a toque, anyway? How do you pronounce cloche? Why do you call it a pill box? Hats are a mystery to me. I love them for their sculptural quality and utilization of beautiful materials like feathers and netting and bits of sparkle and silk. However, I rarely wear them, and when I do I feel silly. I view my hat shyness as some kind of illness that I'm just about to overcome. I thought I'd start with empowering myself with some hat vocabulary. Here's the fist dose of vocab:

Toque - According to Urban Dictionary, toques are very popular hats in Canada, along with a couple of other slang terms I'm sure you're familiar with. Digging a bit deeper, toques originate centuries back, and are more recently the familiar chef's hat. Tall and brimless. (Just how I like my men.... sorry, I couldn't resist. ) This term also refers to another type of hat, which is more specifically for the ladies. A more fashionable woman's toque is always brimless, but usually more closely fitting to the head. If you're hat shy because of the extra bulk, this is a good starter hat. With all this said, here are a couple of great toques that I found on Etsy today.

A darling piece with darling photos from a brand new shop, Poppycock Vintage, which is focusing on none other than vintage hats!

Of course, I found a lovely little piece at DearGolden. Lauren never disappoints!

Perhaps these pieces reflect my shyness toward hats. They're both lovley, chic, simple pieces. How could I really go wrong?