In my Easter bonnet…

At Easter, I always think of Judy Garland and her appreciation of a man in a hat:

Never saw you look quite so pretty before
Never saw you dress quite so handsome – what’s more

I could hardly wait to keep our date
This lovely Easter morning
And my heart beat fast as I came through the door
For…

In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it
You’ll be the grandest fella in the Easter parade.
I’ll be all in clover, and when they look us over
We’ll be the proudest couple in the Easter parade.

On the avenue, Fifth Avenue,
The photographers will snap us
And you’ll find that you’re in the rotogravure.
Oh, I could write a sonnet, about your Easter bonnet
And of the guy I’m taking to the Easter Parade.

I haven’t been on an Easter Parade, but it seems a good moment to take a walk down my headwear memory lane.

Here are some holiday snaps from the early 60s. I was born in 1955, so take a guess at the dates yourself.

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By 1982 I was living in London, working on Drapers Record and embracing retro fashion, which included a zoot suit, a beret, a DB suit and a trilby.

I like the practicality of headgear, as seen here in the American Mid-West in 1977, in Iceland in 2006 and in Yorkshire in 2010.

Travels are a good excuseto unleash an unexpected head covering, such as this astrakhan cap in Russia in 1986, a hanky above a Costa Rican volcano in 1992 and a spotted hanky in Portugal in 2006.

Today I am not a great fan of inexpensive peaked caps, but in the past I have worn one in Thailand (1990), Dominican Republic (1988) and London (1987) and (1992).

My straw hats date back  to the early 1980s. If we ever have any good weather again , I will dig out the neat Independent Italia hat that Lapo Elkann gave me in from 2009 and the blue trilby by Ede & Ravenscroft from 2012.

You can’t go wrong with a flat cap: mine include one a grey linen one from Barneys New York, and various styles from Bates the hatter in Jermyn Street.

I wore this trilby in the late ’70s. It’s time to get a new one.

I have a soft spot for my deerstalker.

Don’t worry – I only wear this decorated Turkish cap at home!

This is my latest acquisition – a tweed trilby from Failsworth.

As the old ad slogan says, if you want to get a head, get a hat.

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