Maybe shopping would be easier if I paid attention to what’s in fashion, but I don’t, so I always seem to desire something that doesn’t exist.

This time my goal is a black straw cloche. A cloche is the close-to-the-head hat, small brimmed style from the 1920s. But apparently it’s not a style for 2004. I can find all sorts of floppy sun hats and narrow-brimmed fabric hats with square crowns, and some dreadful caps I remember from the 1970s. One lovely hat I tried on was the right shape—but it was the wrong color (burgundy) and definitely the wrong price (41,000 yen).

So I will have to look again because I don’t have the millinery skills to make a straw hat.