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Elizabeth Taylor has reinvented herself and her image time and time again. The results have often helped redefine modern fashion.

By the 1980s, practically no one under 60 in the real civilian world wore hats for anything except weddings, funerals or Ascot. Hats had been in competition with hair, and hair had won. Thirty years before that, Brits of all classes and ages wore hats all the time.

I remember in the early nineties people saying the hat was just for old women, but that's ridiculous.

Hats are for life's ultimate moments. They're worn at races, at weddings. Occasions many of us, who aren't royals and celebrities, only attend once or twice in a lifetime.

Fame and stardom sat very easily on Elizabeth Taylor's shoulders.

Hats are attached to special moments in people's lives - weddings, or the races. In difficult times, people still get married; they still want to look their best.

Not long ago, a hat was a conformist accessory. Then the 1960s came along, and young people didn't want to wear hats.

What I love most about Her Majesty is that she has kept hats alive in people's minds for more than 60 years. You can't think of her without imagining her with a hat or a crown. I would, of course, love to design one for her.

Working women wore hats. It was the only way they would take you seriously.