A head start on style

THIS year will go down in the annals of fashion as the year the hat was hot.

And much of the credit goes — fanfare please — to one of our fellow citizens, milliner Philip Treacy.

The wedding of newly-anointed style icon Kate Middleton to Prince William sparked a frenzy of millinery madness, encapsulated in the extraordinary Treacy confection worn by Princess Beatrice. It brought to mind the old insult: ‘Her hat is a creation that will never go out of style. It will look just as ridiculous year after year.’ Yet within days, the “unique sculptural celebratory headpiece in delicate tea rose silk” — or the pretzel toilet seat, as it was more commonly known — had notched up 150,000 followers on Facebook and raised almost €95,000 for charity when it was auctioned on eBay.