Fascinators

A Fascinator, ready to wear.

There is a kind of English hat called a fascinator, generally worn on the side of the head.  There is no hat part, usually just a little disc or a comb with strange feathers attached.  
Camilla wore one for her wedding to Prince Charles. By Philip Treacy, it was an aureole of feathers trimmed close to the quill so it looked like a halo of wheat.  A mystical sort of crown to say 'take that!' to everyone who doesn't want her to be Queen Camilla.
I find this kind of hat as bizarre as the makaraba, but not as much fun.  It really does smack of 'society' and general uselessness, part of an ethnic dress code that means much to those who wear them.   Sarah Ferguson wore one to Diana's funeral – black, gay, defiant; Sarah the renegade princess who escaped. Her fascinator was a little black box with thin black feathers shooting out of it, worn over her ear.

It is all seriously  frivolous, and as we here generally only wear hats when it is freezing out — thick, woolly things – I do wonder where it is that Canadian society allows frivolity.  Certainly not in its dress.  Hats have traditionally been indicators of social status, the best hat being the crown.  Indeed, the top of a hat is still called the crown.  In Canada, and in the US, supposedly we do not have a rigid social hierarchy revealed through sartorial codes so perhaps the hat as a defining moment is no longer readable.   Something must have replaced it, I don't believe there is such a thing as a non-hierarchical society.   Just can't think what it would be right now.