London Fashion Week: Let them eat...hats?

The skies looked ominous, but there were brief spells of sunshine, and barbeque smoke from the restaurant tent wafted up towards the London Eye...

And a curious trend I spotted on the first day at London Fashion Week was...

Hats.

Funny, beacuse I heard Hilary Alexander on the news a little while ago saying that “if fun isn’t coming back within the next few weeks, I’ll eat my hat.” I must say, the atmosphere did seem a little more subdued than usual, and hats were certainly out in abundance. I wore a hat myself, but I’m afraid I couldn’t photograph me, so here are a few of the others I saw:

Anthony Hagen from the St Louis Post was wearing a charmingly characterful hat, along with a fabulous ‘back to school’ satchel and curious Amish style shirt. Rosie from the London Style Journal was dressed in her trademark cheap and very chic vintage. 

Jodie Chinn, the face of Young British Designers was wearing a delicious red felt hat.

I’ve never seen Tracy Rose without a hat, so it’s probably just as well she’s a milliner. I’m just curious to know how she does anything with those nails?

This stylist from Thailand was wearing a trendy crocheted bandana (and out of view are his vermillion nail polished fingers). 

Piers Atkinson went for the traditional floral look with cherry blossoms, shown here.

J Smith created something a little more unique and unusual,

as did the talented Zara Gorman over at On/Off,.with her futuristic wood and moulded plastic designs.

But it was Philip Levine who really stole the show as 'head designer' with his Swarovski crystal studded pate (a little reminiscent of this 1920s rhinestone studded headpiece at ShopCurious). You can read more about Philip's retro-progressive headwear over at The Dabbler.

And yes, the traffic was pretty horrendous, thanks to the Pope and so many festivals going on simultaneously in London. Open House London starts today too. Anyway, at least I was able to do a spot of window shopping on the way home. I didn't notice any hats, but there was a lady outside Coutts who looked as though she'd just lost one. See her?

Do you?