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15 January: what is celebrated today
15 January places us on a curious border between the everyday and the symbolic. On the one hand, museums around the world open themselves to the spontaneity of the selfie, inviting the public to walk through their rooms with a playful, almost intimate gaze. On the other, the United States dedicates this date to an accessory as old as human history itself: the hat. Two very different celebrations, but united by a common idea: the way we present ourselves to others, whether through a photograph or the object we wear on our heads. Both commemorations speak of identity, personal expression and
World Museum Selfie Day
For centuries, museums were solemn, almost silent spaces, where the public moved with restrained respect. But in recent years, the relationship between visitors and collections has changed: the museum experience has become more conversational, more personal, more open. Museum Selfie Day, held every third Wednesday in January, arose precisely from the desire to bring art closer to everyday life. The invitation is simple: take a selfie inside a museum and share it, not as a frivolous act, but as a way of telling one’s own relationship with culture.
The museum, a place devoted to what is permanent, is transformed for one day into the setting for a fleeting image. The visitor ceases to be a spectator and becomes the protagonist; art ceases to be on the other side of the display case and appears as part of the frame. There is something revealing in this gesture: when we photograph ourselves next to a work, we do not merely want to take away a memento, but also to inscribe ourselves — if only for an instant — in the long history of what we observe. A selfie in a museum is, in a sense, a declaration of belonging to the cultural narrative of which we are part.
National Hat Day
In the United States, 15 January celebrates an object that has accompanied humanity since Ancient Egypt. The hat arose as protection against the weather, but soon became a symbol: of status, occupation and identity. In Greece, headgear marked social standing; in Rome, the pileus was offered to freed slaves; in the Modern Age, broad-brimmed hats and exuberant feathers distinguished nobles and courtiers. The hat has always been a small manifesto about who we are.
Today, its variety is almost infinite: wide-brimmed women’s hats, bucket hats, baseball caps, liturgical mitres, campaign hats, fedoras… Each form contains a story. Some are practical tools, others expressions of fashion, others cultural symbols that travel from generation to generation. Even their manufacture has left unusual traces, such as the historical use of mercury in processing felt, the origin of the celebrated “mad as a hatter”.
National Hat Day invites us to reclaim this accessory as an item of character, a detail capable of transforming the attitude with which we go out into the street. It is also a celebration of the hatters’ craft, artisans who still keep alive an art that requires precision and patience. Putting on a hat is not merely covering oneself from the sun: it is choosing a gesture that accompanies our way of being in the world.