The Chapeaux Nouveaux

In Paris, an Easter parade of crowning glories

Chez Gabrielle Cadet,hats sit atop potted poles like exotic hothouse flowers. Twenty-sixyear-old Cadet trims a black velvet cap with a bunch of irrepressible velvet violets or decorates a straw calotte with a cluster of straw pinecones. "I like taking things from nature, " says Cadet, who came to Paris from provincial Rouen four years ago to realize her childhood dream. Though she supplies more modish millinery for designers Thierry Mugler and Guy Paulin, her passion remains head-dressing "brides, mothers of the brides, and their best friends—it's a cross between psychoanalysis and playing dolls. "

Marie Mercté'shats sprout from themes. She dubbed her first, 1986 collection of "mostly purple" headgear "L'Égoïste"; her Mad Hatter hats and Napoleonic bicomes were "Fairy Tale"; and this summer's sophisticated take on Parisian primitive was "Zoulous Papous Zazous. " "Clothes should be a disguise, " says the Louise Brooks—bobbed redhead. "If people weren't so silly, I'd even wear 'Le Zoulou' "—a straw-and-calico cross between a Zulu chieftain's headdress and a bishop's miter—"on the Metro."

Jacques Le Correis afraid his hats—a confection piled high with black straw Medusa coils, an ostrich-feather cap radiating lace-tipped metal arrows—will be misconstrued as theater: "l want them to remain fashion accessories, " insists the twenty-five-year-old. Although the commercial success of his new ready-to-wear line helps make his fantasies a reality, Le Corre (whose extravagant creations are concocted primarily for couture runways) claims he can't design his diffusion collection unless he can do his "très beau on the side."

CHARLA CARTER