KEY POINTS:
I quite like driving fast, I don't mind heights or small spiders and I'm not worried about travelling to strange lands alone. But hats? They scare me.
Bowlers, cloches, cheese-cutters, baker boys, berets or trilbies freak me right out.
I am blessed with an unnaturally small head, and whenever I put a hat on I always feel like it might be eating my face. Or alternatively I look like my brain has swollen and I've become some sort of extra-terrestrial dome-head.
Seriously, I would feel sorry for me if I was you - I can't even begin to think about wearing something as simple as a baseball cap (they're all too big) and it's been a long, hard summer for the owners of undersized heads with no fitting head gear.
On the other hand, I absolutely love hats - on other people, that is. Hats are a huge part of the dress-up fantasy that fashion can inspire.
Look at those incredible photos of women from an altogether more elegant era, the first half of last century. Long black duster coat, pale dress, and ooh, what's that? It looks like a flying saucer just landed on her head. And it has one feather for an antenna.
Yet she looks amazing. And I'm sure she'll be sidling sideways through any doorways with grace and ease. Her hat will not touch the sides. Curses. I am jealous.
Actually I would never have had to out my fear of hats except for three things. I recently bought two amazing little vintage hats - one has grapes dangling merrily off the side, the other has feathers. I'm desperate to rock these little honeys but so far I have only pranced around in the privacy of my own home wearing them.
Second, scanning the pictures from the various Fashion Weeks that have been on recently, you can't help but come to the conclusion that hats (and gloves) are going to be pretty damn trendy this winter, and possibly next winter too.
And third, and most importantly, Viva is devoting a whole edition to horseracing, and obviously we needed a story on hats.
So that is why I am on my way to visit two hat experts today. Because clearly, like so many others out there, I am torn by my conflicting desires. I need hat therapy badly.
First stop: Urban Turbans in Devonport. Diane Dudley, milliner and owner, is a lovely young lady who sits me down on a chair in front of a mirror and starts gently patting the air around my head.
"A lot of people feel drowned by hats," she says sympathetically. "They think they have to have all these big feathers and things. But I think the best hats are delicate and simple. They have to work well with your face shape and enhance that."
Over the 13 years she's been working in millinery, Dudley has come up with what seems like rather a cunning way of working out what suits people's heads. She also puts a lot of stock in their hairstyle.
"I think generally you wear your hair the way that suits you best anyway," she explains. "With you, I'd have something curving around your head, I think."
Dudley cups my cheek with her fingers. "And I'd look at how your eyebrows move, how you move your jaw. A lot of it is about symmetry."
By the end of my consultation with her, I'm feeling a little less fearful of hats. Dudley's been very soothing, telling me that when you're making someone a hat by hand, the very nervous could even have two fittings if they liked.
Next stop: the apartment of Ailie Miller, owner of Dollie Vardin hats. Miller is one of the best and most old-school of milliners in New Zealand. She recently returned from a stint living in Christchurch; all her Auckland clientele flocked back to her, and as soon as I walk into her tiny atelier I can see why. These hats are flippin' marvellous, Missus.
Miller collects vintage raffia or gets her materials imported from France and Italy - no cheap made-in-Asia straw for her - and the headgear on display in this room is to die for.
Her handmade hats - with rows of realistic-looking rose petals, crimson plumes rising like smoke, large black gemstones on a cloche - are like bits of the most beautiful architecture for a cranium, little Kodak moments on hat-stands waiting to happen.
I take a seat on her couch while she sits in a curved arm chair - it's starting to feel a bit like a psychotherapist's office.
When it comes to making hats, Miller looks at all aspects of her client's body. "Yes, you do have a small head," she nods knowingly. "It's a bit of a pea, isn't it?" The truth hurts.
She softens the blow. "But you have a nice, heart-shaped face so you could wear a lot of different shapes." We try about eight of the beautiful hats on, everything from a delightful black cloche with a big bow to a big floppy straw number to a sort of circle of black fabric from which delicate feathers spring, as though they're coming out of a fountain. I feel a bit like a peahen wearing the latter.
Miller has already warned me I will laugh when I put this on and she's right - I'm not sure why she knows me so well after only half an hour, but it does seem that when it comes to making hats to order, the smartest milliners have to work in psychology as much as feathers and fabric.
And then it happens: I bend down and she slides the most amazing thing on to my head. Made of blue-grey and russet-coloured silk taffeta, it has gentle feathering and French veiling dyed to match that curves around my face (just like Dudley said it should).
I love it. It's beautiful, it fits like the proverbial glove, it brings out the blue in my eyes and, best of all, I actually don't even feel like I'm wearing a hat.
Come here, my little precious, I would coo if I could, let me take you home for some private dancing sessions in my bedroom. For you are truly ravishing.
And all of a sudden, I feel like I'm cured. The fear has gone. I have found my one true hat. I leave Miller's studio, humming The Power of Love under my breath, wondering where I can get $380 from this afternoon to buy that hat. In fact, as I write this a day later, I'm still thinking about my blue-grey and brown beauty, languishing alone in the hat therapy clinic, oops, I mean, Miller's atelier.
Almost a week later and I still don't have that hat - but what I do have now is a moral for this story and advice for anyone else with a phobia for headgear: there's a hat out there for everyone, guys. So don't give up. Even if it means that you must go to the hat world's equivalent of a dating agency.
Choosing the right hat
* It's all about balance and geometry - larger, taller bodies better suit larger brims or taller hats. Square or round faces don't suit hats with square or round crowns and so forth.
* Finding balance means considering everything from your height to the length of your neck to the colours in the outfit you plan to wear.
* A hat can even out any lines on your face and enhance your eyes, believe it or not. Play around with different shapes and colours to see what works best.
* Be sure to look at yourself wearing the hat in a full length mirror to check overall balance. In a shorter mirror I felt like a dome head. In a longer one a tall hat looked more even.
* The way a hat sits is very important. Miller reckons you need an almost perfect face to wear a straight brim, straight on. So play with the different angles until you're satisfied.
* When you're doing that, make sure your hair is the way you would wear it under the hat.
* Make sure the hat fits properly, not too tight or loose.
* Play with different colours to see what suits your skin tone and eye colour best.
* The best way to get the perfect hat is to have a milliner make you one. Prices go from around $400 and can go up to $800 or more.
* Those still harbouring their fear of hats may like to try a fascinator instead. These are basically bits of decoration, like feathers and flowers, on a comb or hairband. Be aware, though, that if you are off to the races to compete for a fashion prize, fascinators are generally not considered hats - milliners look down on them.
