An Easter Bonnet represents the tail-end of a tradition of wearing new clothes at Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

, in harmony with the renewal of the year and the promise of spiritual renewal and redemption

Redemption (theology)

Redemption is a concept common to several theologies. It is generally associated with the efforts of people within a faith to overcome their shortcomings and achieve the moral positions exemplified in their faith.- In Buddhism :...

.

The "Easter bonnet" was fixed in popular culture

Popular culture

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

 by Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin

Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...

, whose frame of reference was the Easter parade

Easter parade

The Easter parade is an American cultural event consisting of a festive strolling procession on Easter Sunday. Typically, it is a somewhat informal and unorganized event, with or without religious significance. Persons participating in an Easter parade traditionally dress in new and fashionable...

 in New York City, a festive walkabout that made its way down Fifth Avenue from St. Patrick's Cathedral

St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York

The Cathedral of St. Patrick is a decorated Neo-Gothic-style Roman Catholic cathedral church in the United States...

:

In your Easter bonnet

with all the frills upon it,

You'll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade.

At the depths of the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 a new hat at Easter, or a refurbished old one, was a simple luxury. The self-consciously quaint "bonnet

Bonnet (headgear)

Bonnets are a variety of headgear for both sexes, which have in common only the absence of a brim. Bonnet derives from the same word in French, where it originally indicated a type of material...

", which had been tongue-in-cheek euphemism for a hat

Hat

A hat is a head covering. It can be worn for protection against the elements, for ceremonial or religious reasons, for safety, or as a fashion accessory. In the past, hats were an indicator of social status...

 for more than a generation, supplied Berlin with his rhyme.

The broader English tradition of new clothes at Easter has been noticed in late 16th century references by Peter Opie, who noted Mercutio

Mercutio

Mercutio a fictional character in William Shakespeare's 1597 tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. He is a close friend of Romeo, and Romeo's cousin Benvolio, and also a blood relative to Prince Escalus and Count Paris. As such, being neither a Montague nor a Capulet, Mercutio is one of the few in Verona...

's taunting of Benvolio

Benvolio

Benvolio Montague is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's drama Romeo and Juliet.-Sources:In 1554, Matteo Bandello published the second volume of his Novelle which included his version of Giuletta e Romeo. Bandello emphasises Romeo's initial depression and the feud between the families,...

 in Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...

: "Did'st thou not fall out with a Tailor for wearing his new Doublet

Doublet

Doublet may refer to:*Doublet , a man's snug-fitting buttoned jacket that was worn from the late 14th century to the mid 17th century*Doublet , an assembled gem composed in two sections, such as a garnet overlaying green glass...

 before Easter?" At just the same time Thomas Lodge

Thomas Lodge

Thomas Lodge was an English dramatist and writer of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.-Early life and education:...

's moralising pasmphlet Wits Miserie (London, 1596) recorded "The farmer that was contented in times past with his Russet Frocke & Mockado

Mockado

Mockado is a woollen pile fabric made in imitation of silk velvet from the mid-sixteenth century. Mockado was usually constructed with a woollen pile on a linen or worsted wool warp and woollen weft, although the ground fabric could be any combination of wool, linen, and silk...

 sleeues, now sels a Cow against Easter to buy him silken geere for his Credit". In Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...

' diary, 30 March (Easter Day) 1662, he notes

Having my old black suit new furbished, I was pretty neat in clothes to-day, and my boy, his old suit new trimmed, very handsome.

Poor Robin

Poor Robin

Poor Robin was an English 17th and 18th-century satirical almanac series, appearing as Poor Robin's Almanack from 1663. Other similar writings by the pseudonymous Poor Robin were published later, in American and into the 19th century.-Origins:...

, an 18th-century English almanac maker, offered the doggerel

At Easter let your clothes be new

Or else be sure you will it rue.

and the notion that ill-luck would dog the one who had not something new at Easter expanded in the 19th century.

Today the Easter bonnet is a type of hat that women and girls wear to Easter services, and in the Easter parade following it. Ladies purchased new and elaborate designs for particular church services, and in the case of Easter, taking the opportunity of the end of Lent

Lent

In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...

 to buy luxury items. Now, in a more casual society, Easter Bonnets are becoming harder to find, as fewer and fewer women bother with the tradition.

Modern Easter bonnets for children are usually white wide-brimmed hats with a pastel colored satin ribbon around it and tied in a bow. It may also have flowers or other springtime motifs on top, and may match a special dress picked out for the occasion.

Until recently, it was popular in infant school

Infant school

An Infant school is a term used primarily in the United Kingdom for school for children between the ages of four and seven years. It is usually a small school serving a particular locality....

to ask a child to design an Easter-themed hat at that time of year. The aim was to get their parents to wear it to Easter services.