Cool Heads Prevail

With hats back on the runways, this Spring Racing Carnival calls for a millinery intervention.

- Damien Woolnough

IN 1970, A MARTINI-DRENCHED character in Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company screeched, “Does anyone still wear a hat?”, and 47 years later, designers on the runways in Paris, New York, Milan and London answered with a resounding chorus of ‘yes’.

Put it down to the Alessandro Michele effect at Gucci, where more is definitely more, or the death of the perfect Stepford Wife blow-dry, but suddenly an uncovered head is a style sin. With Lorde running around in her music video for Perfect Places wearing a Jacquemus straw topper and Chanel’s sea of boaters afloat on the A/W 2017 haute couture runway, the style gods are sending clear signals to make millinery a priority.

If you’re not convinced that the hat has replaced the handbag or high heel as a way to make an instant style-statement, the Spring Racing Carnival is the perfect opportunity to dip your toe into the turf and start playing the game of crowns.

“I am very much a more-is-more designer. I embrace it and I encourage my clients to do it,” says milliner Viktoria Novak, who catered to countless princesses for a day at Flemington, Caulfield and Randwick racecourses last year. However, when it comes to headwear virgins, Novak is happy to settle for less. “Although hats remain popular trackside, statement headbands are the way forward this season.”