Words Ethan Price

The American designers trying to bring their fashion closer to the planet “Topographically the country is magnificent – and terrifying. Why terrifying? Because nowhere else in the world is the divorce between man and nature so complete.” The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, Henry Miller’s 1945 memoir, written on his return to his country of birth (after a decade as an expat in Paris) was “a loaded gun to the head of America”.

Investigating four fashion archives and the emotional power of second-hand threads Sitting outside Bar Italia, I see a boy wearing a saucy little outfit. Girl, like a Courtney Love costume (rumpled icy-pink camisole, fishnets). Boy, like a guy Lana Del Rey would write a song about (fur-trimmed hood, cigarette held between forefinger and thumb, cargo shorts). Then — Clark Gable moustache, loafers, old Hollywood Brylcreem hair, purple tartan waistcoat. It’s all over the place. Bonkers.

Madeline Thornalley of Hurtence explains why the most audacious, absurd hats provoke the greatest emotions Hats are pure fantasy. You can do whatever you want when designing a hat. Disregard bodies and their damn shapes and measurements. Bulging, being difficult, never how you want them to look. Trying to illusion up a wasp waist, or shoulder and chest architecture for Canary Wharf top dogs. None of that matters. But hats – they don’t even have to fit the circumference of the head (fascinators!).