@PB and
@TigerLily. It probably will not surprise you that I LOVE hats in general. I have three fascinators that I adore. My first I did pick up when I lived in England. Two I have worn many times over the years to different events. One was bought for a specific wedding to go with a specific silk dress and while I love it, it's a bit harder to match to other outfits!
Fascinators can be a bit more....flamboyant...than many hats so I think that may scare off some people from wearing them.
But they're super fun, lightweight, and you can still do really fun hairstyles with them which make them nice for special events.
The origin of the term "fascinator", as far as I can tell, is old but like many things old words wouldn't exactly translate to what we call the fascinator today. Originally, in Europe it would have been more like a scarf warn over the hair, and then later in North America would have been a small scarf or shawl warn over the head. Fascinator as we use it now came about in the 1960's from a New York designer. It's apparently used simply because the
decoration was "fastened" to the hair. But throughout time there have been many instances of hair adornments that we would now recognize as a fascinator, they just didn't use that term then.
If you're into it there's two articles that outline the history:
This one is short:
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/544559/why-are-small-fancy-hats-called-fascinators-royal-familyThis one is much longer and more detailed:
https://visforvintage.net/2012/08/30/fascinator-history-of-a-hair-accessory/