THE OCCASION HAT

I very rarely wear hats. There is something about the way they draw attention to the face that makes me feel as if I am showing off. Yet hats have a haunting place in our family history.

Our grandmother Ethel was born in 1891 in the city of Zhytomyr,

We sat on a sofa and discussed the various options, piles of pictures scattered on the floor. As we talked, I began to realise that my favourite was Alexander McQueen, a label which at that point, shortly after McQueen’s horribly untimely death, was newly in the hands of Sarah Burton. I thought that the level of extraordinary craftsmanship and their tradition of working with symbolism would be up to the task, that Sarah and Catherine would get on as women, and that it would be terrific to have a relatively untraditional fashion house given this privilege. And then I left. I didn’t mention the meeting to anyone and I didn’t hear anything more.

Months later, as I sat in the nave of Westminster Abbey awaiting the royal bride’s arrival, as intrigued as the rest of the world to see what she had chosen, a text pinged through from a colleague: ‘It’s McQueen!’

I lay no claim to being anything other than one of many sources of that decision, but all the same I was thrilled at being a small speck in the picture of this particular moment in history.

Alexandra (far right) with her father Milton, mother Drusilla and siblings Jason and Nicky in 1969. ‘I remember being particularly fond of the belt I was wearing which came from Kids in Gear in the King’s Road’