It won't achieve the must-have status of Oprah's UGG-brand sheepskin boots, but NewsChannel5 general-assignment reporter Angie Lau's fur hunting hat has garnered attention during this winter of heavy snows and subzero temperatures.
The 32-year-old broadcast journalist says she's been bombarded with e-mails inquiring where she got the extreme Elmer Fudd headgear ever since she first donned it for a weather story last winter. (The hat just happens to match a faux-fur stole Lau bought at Banana Republic three years ago, which she sometimes sports along with it.)
Unfortunately, she's not much of a shopping resource. Lau found the hat — a purchase her father made in 1975 before moving to Canada from Hong Kong — at the back of a closet during a visit to her parents' suburban Toronto home.
"I tried it on and it felt very warm on my ears," she remembers. Any image-consciousness that remained after shivering through innumerable remotes in more attractive chapeaus disappeared.
Lau says her co-workers and superiors at the station are amused by her decidedly unfashionable cold-weather accessory, which she will continue to wear until the winds subside and the mercury rises above freezing. However, she concedes that it may be time for a change.
"Some of my colleagues' hats are actually very warm and very pretty," she says with a laugh. "I think I just need to go shopping."
