This summer's ultimate beach accessory? A supersized sun hat
The thing about a giant hat is that you needn’t even wear it on your head. Hang it it on a nail on the wall and you have instant deshabillé summer décor. You might be in a semi in Royal Tunbridge Wells, but that Dulux brilliant white wall with its new addition will make you dream of being in a hut at Margate, at the very least. Fashion (and by fashion I mean the sort that comes down runways, which you may feel has little bearing on your daily wardrobe trials) has decreed a super-sized straw hat to be de rigueur.
Provencal hat, ￡510, Marysia x Lola Hats Marysia, Striped kaftan, ￡29.99 Zara Fiji woven beaded shoulder bag, ￡27 Topshop
It’s namely due to a new-ish name on the Parisian designer schedule going by the name of Jacquemus (his surname: forename Simon, 28, French), which has a Musketeer ring to it. And like that dear triumvirate of justice, he also likes to style his clothes with enormous floppy hats which, frankly, I am all for. Nothing says summer like a mega-chapeau, and even if you are only in Barnet, you can still wear one. Even in the rain. Maybe even more in the rain. Britain is a hat-friendly land. Did you know, that historically, one of the hot spots for hat making is Luton? In its heyday in the Thirties it was a centre for production, making around 70 million hats a year.
Blanche grosgrain-trimmed hemp sunhat, Maison Michel ￡530 Net-a-porter.com
Two-tone floppy hat, ￡17, Accesorize, Taygete bow-embellished velvet and leather slides, ￡150, Ancient Greek Sandals Matchesfashion, V neck swimsuit, ￡35 COS
Stephen Jones, the prolific milliner behind Doria Ragland’s daring little topper for her daughter’s recent wedding, who collaborated on the V&A’s excellent Hats exhibition in 2009, has said that: “A hat is nothing until worn. The hat’s impact is a synthesis of who that person is and who they want to be.” Great designers have an innate understanding of this, Coco Chanel started out as a milliner. Yves Saint Laurent conjured up creations in the Seventies that managed to combine his hedonistic bohemia with extreme elegance. A sizeable hat can be an armour, you can peek out from under it, and decide if you’ll join in or not. It’s excellent for stealth spying on your beach company without being noticed. You may have a crumpled one rotting in a box somewhere. Give it a good steam and see if it can be pulled back into shape.
TRACKING THE TREND
On a Royal tour...1971
The Seventies was a great time for hat-wearers. See Anne, Princess Royal, whose best sartorial decade this surely was. Whether in Turkey – in this picture she’s visiting the ancient city of Ephesus with her ma and pa – or indeed any Mediterranean holiday haven, there’s no more stylish strategem for keeping the sun off your face.
Four weddings and a giant hat...1994
Was there ever a more golden moment in the annals of nuptial upstaging than Andie MacDowell’s in Four Weddings and a Funeral? If that sly turn of head and flutter of eye under the widest of brims didn’t bring out the Mean Girl in you, then Richard Curtis has failed us all.
Flop stars...2018
Jacquemus is the hot, young thing making floppy, maxi-hats a thing. He follows in a tradition of Parisian designers going for supersized outfit enhancers. Christian Lacroix was at it in the early Nineties (right), and when John Galliano was at Christian Dior he worked with Stephen Jones to make some spellbindingly romantic brims