The top hat is extinct, for better or worse. The man who wears one may treasure its sleek lines or feel emboldened by a particularly lecherous tilt of its brim, but history and passing carnivals have conspired against him. Today’s fop, stepping out in hat and tails, is in truth just a large inverted magic trick, a bipedal rabbit kicking in the footlights of modernity as he dangles by his ears from that ana-chronistic bowl.
Still, one would rather be a bunny than a bunny boiler — and in the realm of sartorial ghastliness, the latter still rule unchallenged. Indeed, the corpse of the top hat seems to have nourished the female of the species, the plain black little carcass ground up in her muslin mandibles.
The construction of women’s hats has changed with the times (today, most are assembled from pre-cast sections), but their core aesthetic has remained unaltered. Velvet orchids still gape, pink and pulsating, tempting the honeybees of approbation to empty their little scorn-sacs into the heart of that sticky cup. The gossamer sombrero design is as popular as ever, giving its wearer the look of a fey Mexican bandito standing on a lily pad, about to engage in a bloody shoot-out with the Dew Fairy, the nastiest nymph with a straight razor this side of the ferny dell. The bulletproof trapezoid also remains a constant trope, its stern grey lines taking their inspiration from somewhere between a Confederate ironclad and a Snackwich machine. And, at last, there are the classics, literally; the Greco-Roman colonnades, aqueducts and summer villas that rise in wedding-cake splendour to challenge the very laws of Newtonian physics.
Unchanging and familiar, but nonetheless mysterious, for none of these iconic forms can explain the malady that afflicts those exposed to too many hats too quickly; namely: a curious, creeping inability to distinguish between events at which hats dominate the skyline. And in the past fortnight, two such events have thrust themselves, like reindeer antlers, up the Dew Fairy’s cobweb petticoat, on to the public stage.
At first glance, it would seem that the Met and the opening of Parliament have little in common beyond the Jurassic stature of the hats on display. True, television coverage revealed that both events were attended by emaciated white girls with wire-and-bead ensembles apparently stapled to their scalps, creating the impression that they had recently crawled through a telephone exchange in search of a rice cake. But that seemed to be it. Until, that is, the eerie parallels began to emerge, like an ironclad looming up through the bijou mists.
Both horse-racing and the processes of Parliament are centred on betting enormous amounts of cash on rigged outcomes. Both feature macho frontrunners, whose sexual exploits have become synonymous with their titles, whether stallion or chief whip. Wilful horses get a blanket and a sugar cube. Wilful parliamentarians get blanket amnesty and deal sweeteners.
Yes, look over the hats and down into the winner’s circle or up the red carpet and one realises that not very much separates the gee-gees from the MPs. Even the bloodlines cross over, the great stables of South African politics producing such names as Son of Govan and Max’s Little Girl. Genetics, unfortunately, cannot yet guarantee that one won’t pull up lame in the last stretch of one’s term in office, but when it comes to the trundlers frothing along at the back of the field, some bets are definitely safer than others.
Indeed, only heartbreak awaits those who mortgage the house on the likes of African Potato (currently on her last legs), or rank outsider Mshini Wam. Bolt From the Blue, from the stable of Alec Erwin, has never lit up the field, and Private Ward, bred by some Sheikhs, may yet prove to be a dawdler, if not a malingerer.
There are worse bets, of course: a handful of nags who insist on dashing about the track in the opposite direction to the rest of the field, pushing stubbornly against the tide; Dead Horse, for instance, being flogged by jockey Corné Mulder; or the DA’s entry, Also Ran. (Patricia de Lille’s Valkyrie would have competed, had she not been barred from the paddock for looking gift horses in the mouth.)
In the end, listening to the State of the Nation address last week, the monotone was comfortingly appropriate as the sport of kings slowly became indistinguishable from the sport of presidents.
“And it’s Taxi Recapitalisation and Crime in the lead, and now it’s More Police with a fast break up the inside, overtaking Crime and, yes, More Police has the crowd on its feet, but there’s still no sign of Aids, Aids seems to have dropped out of it completely and the news from the stables is that Zimbabwe has broken a leg and has been shot by its owner, (bummer that, poor old Zimbabwe), but now it’s Crime making a strong run up the outside, it’s Crime and Taxis nose to nose, here comes Youth Employment and still no Aids …”
This column is dedicated to Robert Kirby