PRESIDENT Pam Plumridge welcomed members and guests from neighbouring clubs to the meeting at the Chateau Impney Hotel.

After supper, having given a few brief notices, she was pleased to announce that the well-supported concert in February, organised jointly with Rotary, raised £1,100 for St Richard’s Hospice.

She then introduced the speaker, Mrs Clark of Catherine Clark Hats in Blakedown, Worcestershire, whose company provides designer hats for hire.

An elegant collection was displayed, many made from Sinamay, a banana fibre product, and supplied by long-established manufacturers in Luton, a traditional centre of that industry, and also from the Yorkshire Handmade Flower Company.

There were hatinators, fascinators and just plain hats on parade in the new season’s shapes and colours, modelled by Mrs Clark, with helpful hints about fitting and wearing particular styles.

A wide working experience, including being a buyer for Harrods and centrally for House of Fraser, has given her a keen sense of women’s needs and tastes.

She suggested that the relatively modest cost of hiring offers a satisfying solution to the familiar dilemna of having hats, bought for previous events, which seem unsuitable for the next big occasion.

With the current choice of more exotic locations for weddings, her hats may even travel abroad.

In the past no less than in our own times, fashion trends were frequently celebrity-led, illustrated by the all-too recognisable styles of her other, vintage collection, shown to round-off her enjoyable talk.
JUNE BODGER