Carmen Miranda in The Gang's All Here trailer cropped

A fruit hat is a festive and colorful

hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

type popularized by

Carmen Miranda Carmen Miranda, (; born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha, 9 February 1909 – 5 August 1955) was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, dancer, Broadway actress and film star who was active from the late 1920s onwards. Nicknamed "The B ...

and associated with warm locales. This type of hat has been worn by

fashionista Fashionista or fashionistas may also refer to: *Fashionista, an avid leader and follower of fashion *Fashionista (website), a website about fashion Entertainment * ''Fashionista'' (TV series), an Australian TV series * "Fashionista", a song by N ...

s, in films, by

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

characters, and for

Halloween Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observanc ...

. The fruit used tends to sit on the top or around the head, and varies in type, e.g. bananas, berries, cherries, pineapples.

History

A fashion report in ''Los Angeles Times'' from 1895 called the use of

mendiant A mendiant is a traditional French confection composed of a chocolate disk studded with Nut (fruit), nuts and dried fruits representing the four mendicant or monastic orders. Each of the ingredients used refers to the color of monastic robes. Tr ...

the "newest trimming" for hats, and noted that hats were "tipped far over the eyes". ''The Chicago Tribune'' reported on fruit ribbons, along with feathers, flowers, and frills, as trim for

Easter Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel ...

hats. A report on artificial fruit used on hats was in a 1918 edition of ''The New York Times''. Fruit and vegetable trim on "gay hats" featured in the first

millinery Hat-making or millinery is the design, manufacture and sale of hats and other headwear. A person engaged in this trade is called a milliner or hatter. Historically, milliners, typically women shopkeepers, produced or imported an inventory of g ...

show of the season at New York's Saks Fifth Avenue in 1941, and overshadowed flowers.

Lil Picard Lil Picard, born Lilli Elisabeth Benedick (October 4, 1899 – May 10, 1994), was a cabaret actress, artist, journalist and critic, born in Landau, Germany, who took part in several generations of counterculture and avant-garde art in Berlin and ...

, a millinery designer for the custom-made department of Bloomingdale's, sought inspiration from nature for her hats and while on vacation "listening to the birds, gazing through the lacy outlines of foliage and watching the ripening fruits, she dreamed of trimmings." Gangs all here trailer

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian "bombshell"

, who "made a habit of wearing exotic headdresses/hats often adorned with fruit", appears as a singer named Dorita in the 1943 film '' The Gang's All Here.'' The movie includes a musical number called "The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat" with barefoot chorus girls dressed in yellow turbans, black

crop top A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in agriculture or hydroponics ...

s, and ruffled yellow

miniskirt A miniskirt (sometimes hyphenated as mini-skirt, separated as mini skirt, or sometimes shortened to simply mini) is a skirt with its hemline well above the knees, generally at mid-thigh level, normally no longer than below the buttocks; and a ...

s who manipulated giant

papier-mâché upright=1.3, Mardi Gras papier-mâché masks, Haiti upright=1.3, Papier-mâché Catrinas, traditional figures for day of the dead celebrations in Mexico Papier-mâché (, ; , literally "chewed paper") is a composite material consisting of p ...

bananas and bounced inflatable strawberries off their toes at the whims of legendary choreographer

Busby Berkeley Busby Berkeley (born Berkeley William Enos; November 29, 1895 – March 14, 1976) was an American film director and musical choreographer. Berkeley devised elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns. Berke ...

Use in marketing

Inspired by Carmen Miranda's costumes, the Chiquita Banana logo featured a cartoon image of an anthropomorphic banana with a human face and a selection of fruit adorning it's hat. The logo was created for

United Fruit Company The United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) was an American multinational corporation that traded in tropical fruit (primarily bananas) grown on Latin American plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was formed in 1899 fro ...

in 1944 by

Dik Browne Richard Arthur Allan Browne (August 11, 1917 – June 4, 1989) was an American cartoonist, best known for writing and drawing ''Hägar the Horrible'' and ''Hi and Lois''. Biography Browne attended Cooper Union and got his start at the ''New York ...

, who is perhaps best known for his

Hägar the Horrible ''Hägar the Horrible'' is the title and main character of an American comic strip created by cartoonist Dik Browne and syndicated by King Features Syndicate. It first appeared in February 1973 and was an immediate success. Since Browne's reti ...

. In advertising of the 1940s, the logo character's voice was supplied by vocalist

Patti Clayton Patti Clayton (February 28, 1924 in Detroit – December 11, 2003) was an American 20th century pop singer. Clayton was the original voice of Miss Chiquita, the Chiquita banana singer. In 1944, bananas were an exotic fruit in America. The Chiquit ...

followed by

Elsa Miranda Elsa M. Miranda (14 February 1922 – 27 April 2007) was a noted Puerto Rican singer who was featured on radio and television in the United States during the Golden Age of Radio in the 1940s. As a naturalized Argentinian, she was also active as ...

June Valli June Valli (June 30, 1928 – March 12, 1993), the stage name of June Foglia, was an American singer and television personality. Early years Born in the Bronx, Valli's father was Italian, and her mother was Austrian. She worked as a bookkeepe ...

and

Monica Lewis Monica Lewis (born May Lewis; May 5, 1922 – June 12, 2015) was an American jazz singer and film actress. Lewis was the longtime voice of Chiquita Banana in that company's animated ad campaign, beginning in 1947. Biography Early life Lewis was ...

. The concept was created by a

BBDO BBDO is a worldwide advertising agency network, with its headquarters in New York City. The agency originated in 1891 with the George Batten Company, and in 1928, through a merger with Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BDO), the agency became Batten, B ...

advertising team headed by Robert Foreman with the song lyrics written by Garth Montgomery and music composed by Len MacKenzie. The original Chiquita Banana advertisement was produced by

Disney Studios The Walt Disney Studios is an American film and entertainment studio, and is the Studios Content segment of the Walt Disney Company. Based mainly at the namesake studio lot in Burbank, California, the studio is best known for its multifacete ...

and ran in

movie theater A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall ( Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...

s. The company later became

Chiquita Brands International Chiquita Brands International Sàrl (), formerly known as Chiquita Brands International Inc. and United Fruit Co., is a Swiss-domiciled American producer and distributor of banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botan ...

and would use a banana wearing a fruit hat

headdress Headgear, headwear, or headdress is the name given to any element of clothing which is worn on one's head, including hats, helmets, turbans and many other types. Headgear is worn for many purposes, including protection against the elements, de ...

on its logo for decades. In 1987 the banana character was replaced with a woman by artist Oscar Grillo, creator of the

Pink Panther ''The Pink Panther'' is an American media franchise primarily focusing on a series of comedy-mystery films featuring an inept French police detective, Inspector Jacques Clouseau. The franchise began with the release of the classic film ''The Pink ...

, to reflect "the image the public had of Miss Chiquita as a real person."

References

{{Hats Hats Edible fruits