After having been forced to wear a hairnet for my job as a server in college, I vowed to avoid any career path that required wearing any type of headgear. (Had I been English, I would have foregone a legal career simply to avoid the powdered wig.) Perhaps that's why I am so appalled that Justices Scalia and Breyer both sported fancy hats with clear allusions to historic figures in the law and/or European fashion. Pray this is not a forerunner to requiring American lawyers and judges to wear ceremonial head coverings in the courtroom.
Justice Ginsburg and retired Justice John Paul Stevens chose sensible, normal American winter hats. Fair enough; it was cold.
According to this BLT post, Justice Scalia's hat is a replica of a Tudor bonnet given to him in 2010 by the St. Thomas More Society of Richmond, Virginia for his participation in the society's Red Mass and dinner. No similar excuse was offered for Justice Breyer.
Painting: Portrait of Sir Thomas More, Hans Holbein the Younger, 1527. Or, Joe Pesci in costume, irritated that he's being required forced to wear a silly hat.
