"A RED HAT WHICH DOESN'T GO"

Just over a year ago, before Italy "shut down" for the summer, I showed some women students Jenny Joseph's poem Warning.  I wanted to leave them with something pleasant, they were linguistically ready to read such a work and I think that women from all cultures can relate to the poem.  Warning was voted Britain's favourite post-war poem  in a 1996 BBC poll. 

It's always nice when students remember a cultural insight you have given them so I was delighted when, just before this year's recess, a student from the same class brought me an article about the poem from D. La Repubblica delle Donne, a Saturday supplement for the newspaper's women readers.  The article's author laments the fact that there is no Red Hat Society in Italy and wonders why.

I think the answer is quite simple:  you will have no trouble getting an Italian woman to wear a red hat, but you will never, ever get her to wear a purple dress with it.