Dearly beloved readers, now that season three of The Traitors has come to an especially chaotic end, we are gathered here today to honor the brief and brilliant lives of its true stars: the hats.
Granted, Peacock’s reality-show whodunit once again had plenty of human breakout stars. Who knew that Dylan Efron of the Zachary Efrons would be such a dedicated sleuth? How could we foresee that Tom Sandoval, Vanderpump Rules’s master of cringe, would be so entertaining despite his most labored efforts? How lucky are we to have Gabby Windey — of The Bachelorette, Dancing With the Stars, and my cold queer heart — delivering her deadpan wisdom on breakfast and backstabbing alike? But as has also become Traitors tradition, this cast didn’t just come to play the game, but also brought along some enviable murder-mystery fashion, too.
With such a deliciously dramatic tone set by host Alan Cumming, the U.S. franchise often sees its celebrity players embracing the flamboyance of their setting even more than their gameplay. In this sprawling Scottish castle, Real Housewives and Drag Race queens can unveil their most glamorous looks, while those who compete on shows like Survivor and Big Brother get to show a whole new side of themselves (i.e., a side that gets to shower and look in a mirror every day). Together, they form one big dysfunctional family of reality-show legends — and also Britney Spears’s ex-husband? — fighting it out to get to the next day alive, or at least score some decent screen time.
For as much as I watch this show to see murder and banishment and people pulling the strings of haunted dolls for cash, I’m mostly fascinated by how these reality veterans choose to present themselves on a show where anyone can live or die on reputation alone. Now that the season has been hard-fought and ultimately won in as messy a fashion as it all began, it’s time to look back at how it unfolded — not through votes or murders but some of the season’s most carefully curated headwear.
RIP, Chanel Ayan’s schoolgirl beret and ribbon (episode two)
Bless sweet Chanel, the bubbly, blissfully ignorant Real Housewives of Dubai star who clearly had no idea what the hell show she’d signed up for. But she still came prepared to luxuriate in a Scottish castle with the highest of fashions — which, she insisted, may have been the reason Bob the Drag Queen kicked her out.
I’m tempted to believe her (never underestimate the power of a drag performer prepared to steal the spotlight), but the two have since reunited in Paris (chic!) and seem just fine, so all’s well that ends in sartorial solidarity, etc.
Speaking of Bob:
RIP, Bob the Drag Queen’s neon-blue fantasy (episode one)
It stands to reason that BtDQ would be less than thrilled to see anyone else threaten to grab the Traitors’s superlative of Most Fabulous Looks (Contestant Edition). I don’t think he had anything to worry about, though. His very first look was a stunner: a gorgeous, deep-blue set, topped off by a hat with such a wide brim he must’ve had trouble rounding corners without knocking over a Housewife. No one outside of the host himself ever came close to beating it.
Though Bob’s roundtable flameout was one for the ages, it’s such a shame his early exit deprived us of what I’m sure were equally jaw-dropping outfits. Adding insult to injury was the fact that the guy who ousted him wouldn’t know a beautiful hat if it smacked him in the face, but there’s no way to do this list without him, so:
RIP, Boston Rob’s backwards [REDACTED TRADEMARK] hat (omnipresent)
For all the grief Bob the Drag Queen gave Rob Mariano for wearing a backwards baseball hat, the fact remains that it makes for one of the most iconic looks in reality-show history. The combination of Rob’s grinning drawl and increasingly ratty Red Sox cap on Survivor is what earned him the nickname “Boston Rob” in the first place. Such is the lore of this hat that when he let a fellow castaway borrow it, he might as well have proposed to her — and then he did. As with Boston Rob himself, his Red Sox hat is legend and here to stay no matter who might find it tacky.
Unfortunately, since no clothing trademarks ever make it into the castle uncensored, Rob had to settle for a plain black hat instead. And while he’s not one to let a little superstition get in his way, let’s be real: With his huge reputation, and without that hat, he was always going to be fighting an uphill battle.
RIP, Chrishell Stause’s snow-bunny chic (episode five)
The sweet Selling Sunset star couldn’t have been more out of her element on The Traitors, but she at least proved game in the wardrobe department. Particular attention must be paid to her adorable white felt hat, which was giving “Madeline if she grew up into a high femme and spent her entire ski vacation in the lodge.” (Ideal vibe, tbh.)
Okay, sure, technically, this season was shot at the height of summer. But to an L.A. woman of tiny-dress experience, being up in the Scottish Highlands must’ve felt equivalent to being stranded on an Arctic glacier. Bundle up, babe! Tout de suite!
RIP, Ivar Mountbatten’s colonizer bucket hat (any episode featuring rain)
The thing about Ivar is that he’s not just “Ivar,” the gullible Traitors rube who insists on calling women “girls” and loves to repeat the last theory he heard as if it were his own mind-blowing idea. He’s also Lord Ivar Alexander Michael Mountbatten, a “proud descendant” not just of Queen Victoria, but “Catherine the Great and Tsar Nicholas I, as well as the celebrated Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.” What’s more, he’s “greatly influenced by his step-grandmother, Josephine Hartford, the heiress to the A&P Grocery empire, one of the wealthiest women of her time” — an objectively weird brag outside of The Gilded Age, but one Ivar nonetheless highlighted on his own website.
To complete the royalist picture, Ivar also used his geology degree to develop mining in Venezuela (ominous) before becoming a director at the parent company of Cambridge Analytica (#tbt). Now, for some reason, he’s on The Traitors playing second fiddle to Dylan Efron.
Given his family tree, it stands to reason he’d do so with the help of a flaccid safari hat. What better symbol is there to remind us of the pillaging traditions from whence Lord Ivar came?
RIP, Tom Sandoval’s Greatest Showman top hat (episode seven)
This man simply cannot resist a theme.
It comes as no surprise that Sandoval threw himself headlong into the fantasy of The Traitors, since almost every Vanderpump season features him spending thousands of dollars on elaborate costumes he’d never wear again, for parties no one else took half as seriously. It also tracks that this glutton for attention would go for an “all eyes on him he’s the center of the ring just like a ciiiiiiircus (uh-huh)” top hat — which admittedly came in handy when shielding him from showers of insects during the season’s most horrifying mission. A stroke of accidental genius, as is the Tom Sandoval way.
RIP, Carolyn Wiger’s depression ribbons (episode seven)
Poor Carolyn just wanted to have some fun on her Scottish summer hols. Instead, the Survivor fan favorite was thrown into the show’s most chaotic Traitors turret to date and immediately became a bundle of raw nerves that fell apart the second she was questioned. No look reflected her inner turmoil as much as the black ribbons she twisted into her extensions one morning that made her look like she was showing up for the defiant, wild-eyed act of Oh, Mary! rather than breakfast.
… actually, if Carolyn can sing — even if she can’t! — she’d probably crush Oh, Mary! Let’s put a pin in that. Moving on:
RIP, Alan Cumming’s chess-piece crown (episode nine)
Alan’s not a contestant, but we really can’t continue this exercise without acknowledging what he brings to the (round)table. No TV host since RuPaul Charles has made such a point of standing out with so much flair that their outfits become a weekly talking point. How fitting that he was the one to break Ru’s Emmy streak for Outstanding Host! Frankly, every nominee in that category from here on out should have to up the ante; let’s get Jeff Probst in a caftan or something, stat.
Anyway, we could talk about Alan’s wedding veil or Technicolor rainbow of berets forever, but there’s just no beating him walking out onto a life-size chessboard wearing a crown of chess pieces. Created by his stylist Sam Spector, it also doubled as a cheeky nod to visiting ex-Traitor Parvati Shallow, whose Blair Waldorf headbands in season two spawned a dozen copycats in season three. This halo of plastic toys was simply the host’s most purely fun piece of eye-catchery all season.
Were the immediate comparisons to Angelica’s spiky-haired doll on Rugrats accurate? Sure. Was it also a feat of styling brilliance? Absolutely.
RIP, Danielle Reyes’s unstable church hat (episode nine)
This very serious list wouldn’t be complete without the towering chapeau Danielle wore to episode nine’s particularly heated roundtable, because none of her many, many breakfast theatrics could prepare us for the operatic meltdown she staged once Carolyn confirmed she was a Traitor.
Danielle’s reaction was so big you would’ve thought Carolyn said she’d been a ghost all along. We’re talking sputtering through sobs. We’re talking about a woman making herself shake as hard as a Chihuahua in the rain. We’re talking about this enormous hat threatening to fall right off the earthquake that was her quivering head. (For another take on the whole spectacle, please refer to Carolyn’s beautifully petty re-creation of Danielle’s hat — which fittingly falls off within seconds.)
It didn’t exactly work, though; Gabby immediately clocked it as suspicious, thus setting the season’s frantic endgame into motion. But as with Danielle’s performance all season long, whatever you want to think of her, there’s just no denying that she committed to the bit. If another player and/or her own hat had to pay the price, so be it.
RIP, Britney Haynes’s diamanté headband of subterfuge (episode 11)
After Britney hit Danielle one more time with a devastating elimination, it was up to the last Traitor standing to make it out of the season alive. She was right when she said Danielle recruiting her at the 11th hour put her in a particularly precarious position. Earning the full prize pot would therefore require every Big Brother trick in her arsenal — and she almost got away with it.
So while Parvati pioneered the Queen Bee Traitors headband, Britney took that energy and ran with it straight to the final roundtable. Her withering kiss-off of “don’t come for me unless I send for you” deserved a better ending than her tears.
Bonus round RIP: Bob the Drag Queen’s magnificent reunion wig
There was a disappointing dearth of elaborate headwear at this year’s reunion. But Bob the Drag Queen persevered, as all the best drag performers do, showing up in a blood-spattered gown and this gorgeous wig studded with pearls that screamed, “I may not be your winner, but I can still win your silly show.”
And isn’t that what Traitors: The C-List Edition is about, in the end? It’s not about who wins or loses or gets the most Traitors out, but which players can come out of the castle with more followers and/or notoriety than when they went in. On that score, Bob — and Gabby, and Carolyn, and Dylan, and even Tom “A Pleasure to Work With” Sandoval — did just fine.