For London Fashion Week, the Victoria and Albert Museum of art and design will present an “anthology of hats” bringing together more than 300 pieces from around the world.

This exhibition, a collaboration between the V&A and the radical hat designer Stephen Jones, will open on February 24 and will be arranged in four main themes, following the life of a hat through the stages of inspiration, creation, the salon, and on, to the client who wears it.

• Inspiration looks at the many influences upon the milliner, including historicism, exoticism and the natural world;
• Creation explores the techniques, traditions,  materials and processes;
• Salon focuses on the buying and selling of hats and the millinery shop;
• Clients or wearer examines the wearing and etiquette of hats and features headgear worn by avid well known wearers including Audrey Hepburn, Anna Piaggi, Dita von Teese.

The most important hat in the exhibition is a Queen Victoria’s bonnet, made from plaited horse hair and salmon-pink silk ribbon and dates from the early 1840s.

“Hats are for everyone – old and young alike,” said Mr Jones. “They are complete eye candy, and in times of recession, they are even more important than ever because they are so optimistic and frivolous when everything else is so serious and gloomy.”

Enjoy this wonderful exhibition from February, 24 to May, 31.