Not Just A Hat Rack - Bonnie

And they'll bury them side by side;

To few it'll be grief

To the law a relief

Bad girl Bonnie wasn’t always this way. At the start of Arthur Penn’s film ‘Bonnie and Clyde’, despite swiftly moving along to the duo’s life of crime, we briefly catch a glimpse of the Bonnie before Clyde. She’s presented as seeming bored and lying around in her bedroom, perhaps waiting for a knight in shining armour to sweep her up. However, the Prince Charming she probably had in mind wasn’t an outlaw. Regardless, Clyde can still provide a life of excitement, danger and a slice of life that whilst suited to Bonnie, she likely never contemplated before.

Her bedroom is adorned with the nicknacks of an adolescent good girl, but she has no qualms about standing naked at her window as she becomes acquainted with Clyde. Soon she’s accompanying him in one of what will become many getaway cars, but whilst Clyde has seduced Bonnie with his bad boy antics, he can’t seem to do so intimately. Nevertheless, the thrill and adventure keep her keen, and her waywardness takes hold.

Yet Bonnie isn’t completely unattached to her former good girl. Through the course of the film and the crimes and bloodshed, she offers hints of her better nature: she writes stories and poetry, flees the gang and insists she visit her mother, and when she does spend what is to be the last occasion with her family, it is nothing but harmonious.

The Hat:

A lot of hats appear in this film, all very representative of who’s wearing them. In fact, it is Clyde who adorns a hat upon first meeting Bonnie and we don’t see her graduate to hat wearing until she has become fully embroiled in the robberies and Clyde has declared “We rob banks.”.

As they become deadly criminals, Bonnie’s confidence increases, her style exuding this and accompanying her behaviour. She even has the audacity to steal a ranger's hat, whilst parading herself in front of a camera, a true crime against hats, as the unimpressed ranger expresses so by spitting in her face.

Bonnie opts for a number of stylish berets, elegantly plonked on her head, never to be knocked off during any wild, chaotic pursuits. It also acts as no attempt at concealing her identity, further suggesting the pair’s crimes were as much unabashed efforts to maintain notoriety, as they were means of getting money.

Counter to Bonnie in both character and the hat department is Blanche, a former preachers daughter who has married Clyde’s brother. Blanche herself will experience a certain transformation, as she is soon implicated in a life of crime, but upon being introduced, she opts for a more modest cloche hat, one that does keep her shied away.

Upon meeting up with her family amidst evading the police, Bonnie forgoes wearing the hat and instead places her hair up and dresses like she’s going to a funeral, as if she had never done a bad thing in her life.

Other occasions when she is without a hat tend to be at times when situations turn unexpectedly frenetic upon the gang being rumbled. She is even gunned down when ambushed, without being accessorised in one of her usual berets.

Perhaps going hatless leaves Bonnie vulnerable and unprotected.

Not Just A Hat Rack - Bonnie reel on Instagram