The English summer season of weddings, christenings and Royal Ascot is now upon us. As a milliner, I often finds myself turning fashion agony aunt as people fret and worry about not only their choice of hat to wear in a church or at the races but also about how to wear it.
The most frequent question I get asked is “Can a lady ever take off her hat in a church service?” The straight answer is “no”, even if you are wearing a large-brimmed Mother of the Bride hat that is blocking the view of all those behind. My advice for those attending a church service – whether it be a baptism, wedding or funeral – is try to keep your hat size “neat” and don’t wear a hat with too wide a brim.
Or wear a fascinator. At the Pippa Middleton (now Matthews) wedding, I had a number of hats worn by guests. The most successful was probably my eye-catching Iris feather hat as it allows guests in the pew behind to see the bride and groom.
For gentlemen, you must always take off your hat the moment you enter a church, or the lunch tent at Ascot, or even if you are sitting down to enjoy a hot dog in the stands. It’s considered seriously faux to be seen eating indoors wearing a hat, especially when inside a building, hotel or marquee.
If you are trying to court a lady, the failure to remove one’s top hat (one prays it is silk) once you step inside a church or grandstand will be held against you. You should also doff your hat to say the briefest “hello” on encountering a female acquaintance or friend outside the church or on a lawn at, say, Ascot.
The biggest problem these days is social ignorance. As a society milliner whose creations are stocked in shops such as Fenwick and Fortnum & Mason and who also makes bespoke hats for racing royalty (and some real royalty), I’m often asked about the social codes of hat wearing.
Most people think that it’s enough to know that the general rule is “hats off indoors for men” and “hats on indoors for ladies”. But the etiquette for both sexes is not as simple as that. According to various wedding etiquette guides, for example, ladies are meant to take their cue from the mother of the bride when it comes to the correct moment for removing hats at the wedding breakfast.
But this is not correct, as I have been assured by no less an etiquette authority than Julian Fellowes, the Ampleforth-educated creator of Downton Abbey. “The only time a lady takes her hat off is in the bedroom,” he once told me.
So what is the correct form if the mother of the bride at a wedding breakfast removes her hat the moment she sits down at her table? The answer is that you should ignore her. Mothers of the bride should know better and set an example by having their hat clamped to their head all day.
For men at Royal Ascot, do not even think about trying to walk anywhere outside in the Royal Enclosure without wearing your hat. You will be ejected. The other times men take off their hats is for the playing of the national anthem; when there is a flag-raising ceremony; during funerals; in public lifts; and in all churches.
I often see friends at a wedding removing their hat in the loo, freshening their make-up, and then emerging with hat in hand, all ready to enjoy flirting with the man seated next to them. You can hardly blame any girl for removing their hat once the wedding formalities are over. Leaning across over the meringue and strawberries to make eye contact with a man while wearing a wide brimmed hat is neither easy nor effective as a flirting technique.
Kissing while wearing a hat is an especially tricky area. At a charity cricket lunch I once found myself sitting next to the former England captain David Gower. When he learnt I was a milliner, all he wanted to know was whether I could create a hat that allowed two people to politely exchange kisses on each cheek. He had a point. When a woman is wearing a large wide-brimmed hat, like my Delphinium hat, kissing her on the cheek while keeping the hat in place is almost impossible.
So what is the kissing etiquette for two acquaintances who encounter each other outside a church or in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot? Should you just stick to air kissing, like the Europeans?
The trouble with kissing in hats is that hats were never intended to be an instrument of sexual negotiation or affection. Rather the opposite. Hat tipping was a feudal gesture which originated with chivalric knights lifting their face visors (still a millinery term) before a tournament to show that they were indeed who they claimed to be, in the interests of keeping knightly tournaments a gentlemanly business.
When knights no longer jousted in helmets, this visor-lifting became part of the military salute. It was a sign of respect – in the same way that Jewish ladies can wear dress hats in a synagogue. In the Edwardian era, it would have been unthinkable for anybody to try kissing in public – even a peck on the cheek was considered risqué.
Laura Cathcart is offering 25 per cent off her hats to Catholic Herald readers for orders before end of June. See lauracathcart.com
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