Hats can either make you look really cool or really dorky. Picture, for instance, the following celebrities in hats:

There was a time in the not-so-distant past that going out without a hat would be cause for scandal — despite what you looked like in them. Fortunately, Lilly Dache entered the fashion world in the 1930s to save the world from frumpy hats.

Lilly Dache knew how to wear a hat. Not only that, she knew how to make other women feel fabulous in hats, too.

Self-deprecatingly referring to herself as an “ugly duckling” in childhood, Dache confessed, “More than anything else, I wanted to be beautiful.” By the 1950s, she was called a “beauty expert” and named one of the best-dressed women in America. The sappy, uplifting story gives us all hope that we, too, can go from uncool to cool.

Dache set out to transform other women into swans, as well. She knew that outward appearance does in fact play a role in how people are viewed and perceived. She said, “A hat is an expression of a woman’s soul. It is something she wears on her head but it belongs to her heart.”

The French-born milliner built an empire out of designing hats that stretched beyond mere headwear and into the realm of art. The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology pays homage to the milliner with its current exhibit Lilly Dache: Glamour at the Drop of a Hat. If you hurry, you can catch it before it closes this Saturday.

There you can see such signature pieces as:

These certainly are a lot fancier than that rag MK’s been sporting on top of her head.

Also on exhibit at FIT right now: She’s Like a Rainbow: Colors in Fashion

Lilly Dache: Glamour at the Drop of a Hat is on view from noon to 8 PM on Tuesday through Friday and from 10 am to 5 pm from now until April 21 at The Museum at FIT (Seventh Avenue at 27th Street, NYC). Admission is free.