Even if the first hats merely served to protect peoplsc heads from heat and cold, they turned into symbols of nobility, rank, authority and beauty at an early stage. When we look into the history of hats it is astonishing to see the elaborate forms they have taken. In 3200 BC Egyptian men wore feathered headdresses, while the pharoahs were distinguished by crowns or cloths laid over wigs. In 3000 BC the Minoans of Crete were renowned for their decorative and unusual costume, and wore tall pointed hats, and sometimes hats like inverted vases. Assyrian hats resembled modern motorcycle helmets. Among the Greeks only the poor wore hats, known as petasos. In Ancient Rome slaves were forbidden to wear hats, but freed slaves wore conical hats symbolising their emancipation.
In Mediaeval Europe men wore leather bonnets over their long hair, while women covered their hair with a wimple until the 11th century,

when this was replaced by a conical cap and a cloth which covered the neck and shoulders.
In the Near East women preferred to decorate their hair rather than cover it with hats, and between the 11th and 13th centuries the crusaders introduced this custom of dressing the hair with jewels and beads to the West. In the 15th century European hats became even more diverse and striking. Men wore tall brimmed hats over skull caps, while women concealed their eyes with veils. Widows and elderly women wore hats resembling beehives, butterfly wings or bell towers, and veils. Portraits of the British king Henry VIII depict a variety of hats, some with brims and others in the form of fur berets. Women covered their heads with cloths that hung down on either side of the face known as French caps. In the 17th century sombrero-like hats with broad brims and feathers were worn by British cavaliers.

Headgear among the ancient Turks of Central Asia generally consisted of tall caps made of fur or felt. In the 11th century Mahmud of Kashgar recorded four types of cap, known as börk, in his Turkish dictionary. These were the sukarlaç, kiziklig, kuturma and kiymaç. The börk continued to be worn in Ottoman Turkey until 1826, and those worn by the janissaries on ceremonial occasions were known as üsküf. Statesmen, religious scholars and sultans all wore distinctive headdresses. The fez was introduced to Istanbul in the 16th century by Algerian seamen, and as well as being worn by Turkish seamen, came to be worn by women.
Following the proclamation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 all traditional types of headgear were abandoned in favour of European style hats and caps, and wearing the fez was prohibited by law on 25 November 1925.

Tall people should wear hats with broad brims, and short people those with narrow brims, for example. She explains that whatever their build, face shape and hair colour, there are hats to suit everyone and bring out the best in their looks.

* Berat Zeliha Senat is a journalist.