Rosie Scott Blog about Women

For someone who doesn't really wear hats, I seem to wear a lot of hats. And this much I know: beanies aren't my best look.

If you happen to look gorgeous in beanies, stop reading this now. There is nothing for you here this week. Go out and frolic in the snow. If there isn't any, emigrate. Or get yourself cast in The Holiday II as Cameron Diaz's younger sister. Beanies need snow.

I'm not bitter about your long, lustrous locks - for those are what beanies require. I'm not comparing cheekbones, either. I'm just saying that beanies are a lot of work. They bring nothing to the table, apart from warmth, which usually comes with itchiness. They're the take, take, take of the millinery cosmos.

A structured, felt-ish hat is far more generous. You need to know this because in winter a hat will stop 70/80/195 per cent of your body heat escaping, depending on which tabloid website you accidentally find yourself. The right shape will also give your face a lovely firm outline, simply by casting a shadow with its brim. (You can use creams to blur the bit in the middle.) If you've chosen wisely, it won't wreck your too-short-for-a-beanie hair - unlike beanies.

I expect you're waiting for the snag - the part where I direct you to a boil-sized hat that costs £600. That's not how investments always work. A warm winter hat needs to be something you can pull off at a moment's notice and stuff in your bag. It cannot behave as Angelina Jolie might reading a Sony email. It needs to chillax. It should have some structure and attitude, but not too much. It must display a GSOH when it is stuffed into your handbag and pulled out again 27 times a day.

Impossible, you say. Yet I found a perfect one in Topshop for £25: it's less rigid than a trilby but definitely a structured, felty hat, and clearly warm. The small print on the label advises not to wear it in the rain. In this country? That's one dumb label. The hat, however, is a winner.

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