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Elegant and eccentric - Easter bonnets on parade

Getty Images A black and white photograph of three women wearing Easter bonnets. Jackie Harris wearing a hat with filled black gloves made to look like hands wrapped around the front of the hat. Toni White is wearing a wide-brimmed hat with a box made to look like a cottage on top complete with straw and Jody Sherwood is wearing a hat that looks like a toadstool. They are all wearing black tops and looking directly at the camera.Getty Images
The competition in 1974 - Jackie Harris wears Many Hands Make Light, Toni White wears Cottage while Jody Sherwood wears Alice Where Art Thou

Traditionally, Easter was a time to wear new clothes. After the self-denial of Lent, it was a chance to celebrate in style - and represented the emergence of a new, reborn, person.

Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary in 1662 about getting new clothes for his wife "against Easter" and Shakespeare's Mercutio asks, "Didst though not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter":[]}