I sometimes yearn for a more elegant life. I don’t want to come over all sentimental for an era I never knew, but few would deny that the Fifties had style all buttoned up. OK, so they also had mangles, McCarthy, powdered egg and outside lavs. But I love the stories of my mother’s teenage net petticoats, dipped in sugar solution and hung out on an umbrella to dry in the desired parabola. Those netticoats were accompanied by white lace gloves and, of course, a hat, always a hat – often a darling crescent of dyed feathers, reaching from ear-to-ear like a Sistene halo. In 1959, as etiquette queen Emily Post wrote, it was “impossible for a hatless woman to be chic". 

I do remember my grandmother’s astonishing variety of titfers – cloche hats, felt hats, straw, velvet and tartan hats.  Even in her late-seventies, she would settle a blush-pink confection of swirling rayon on her white hair for a session at the bridge club. It would sit there, perched like a roosting flamingo, as she played a trump. These days, by contrast, we wear proper hats so rarely that they seem like uninvited guests whenever they do show up at social events. At one particularly chi-chi wedding last year, my friend Prunella appeared in a hat so opulently furnished, so obscuring of her vision, that she spent the entire reception walking into stationary objects such as walls, elderly relatives and dumb waiters.  

But it’s high time we sharpened up our chapeau wearing. According to my sources, and to paraphrase dear Miss Post, no outfit is complete without a hat this season. As far as shape and style are concerned, almost anything goes. If you fancy making a fantastically fashionable statement, wear a fedora from the Imitation of Christ label (New York’s current craze). Or take a tip from Michael Kors and try a Garbo slouch hat, pulled down hard and worn with a swipe of plum-coloured lipstick. Those po’boy caps at Chanel have been a walk-off-the-shelf hit – every store in the high street seems to have its version. Otherwise, do your own thing. A bowler would be very Minelli.  Crochet has a bit of Biba about it. A flat-cap is a tad too Madonna for my liking, but, hey, it’s your call. 

Beyond finding a shape that frames your face - which will, assures milliner Philip Treacy, be as effective as plastic surgery - it’s worth noting the finer points of hat etiquette, as established in those seriously chic Fifties… Over to Miss Manners, another American etiquette expert of the time (and please concentrate, dears; there will be a short test later): "Ladies properly keep their hats on indoors, everywhere except their own houses, during the day," she wrote. "Luncheons traditionally require ladies to wear hats." She added, however, that it is “incorrect to wear a hat with an evening dress”. Got it? Pret a Manger? Hat on. Karaoke at the Dog and Duck? Hat off. Home on the sofa with A Touch of Frost? Off! Next-door for a cuppa? On!  

Now, if there are no further questions, please excuse me. I just have time to sugar-dip my petticoats before luncheon… 

Published You Magazine, January 9 2005