No longer hiding a bad-hair day: the baseball cap is back

SPOTLIGHT / HEAD GIRLS

Margot Robbie sporting a baseball cap in New York.Credit: JosiahW / BACKGRID

Outside a sports arena, baseball caps were once the sole province of blokes with MPB (male-pattern baldness) or gals enduring a BHD (bad-hair day). But the baseball cap has suddenly become elevated. At New York, Paris and Australian fashion weeks this year, It-girls paired them with everything from trench coats and chi-chi blazers to shorts and faux-fur coats.

“Baseball caps are cool!” affirms The Australian Financial Review’s fashion editor, Lauren Sams. “They suit everyone, they’re unisex, they travel well. You can use them to dress down an outfit in a stylish way – and they’re sun-safe.” Naturally, price tags have soared. A Loro Piana cashmere cap – as sported by Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) in a Succession episode in 2023 – will set you back about $850 on mytheresa.com, while The Row’s “Caspian” iteration (in silk-piqué) is a nifty $778 on Net-a-Porter.

But you don’t have to sell a child’s kidney to embrace the look. Sams recommends Sporty & Rich, Ralph Lauren, Venroy and Cargo Crew (her cap du jour is from the latter, embroidered with “Yes Chef” in a nod to The Bear), and Human Made versions, a favourite of Pharrell Williams, as good mid-price-point options. “Wear your cap with trousers or with a blazer [like Margot Robbie] to balance sharp tailoring,” she counsels. Neutrals – think grey, navy, beige, khaki – are timeless but, thanks to its association with Donald Trump and MAGA, avoid red for now. Deborah Cooke

WATCH / WHAT CATE DID NEXT

Cate Blanchett in Disclaimer, taking on a role with big Nic energy.Credit: Apple TV+

With its jaw-dropping interiors, winter coats and heroine on the edge of a nervous breakdown, Disclaimer looks like the kind of thing Nicole Kidman would do. You know, a pulpy, high-end mystery with an unstable woman at its centre. Instead, it’s Cate Blanchett bringing Big Nic energy to this seven-part series directed by Oscar-winner Alfonso Cuarón. She plays acclaimed journalist Catherine Ravenscroft, whose life begins to unravel when a dark secret from her past is exposed in a book by an anonymous author. Although the book is promoted as fiction, Katherine’s husband (a weirdly cast Sacha Baron Cohen) soon cottons on. Persevere, though, as Disclaimer turns into a moreish thriller about the secrets we keep (with quite a bit of sex). On Apple TV+ October 11. Louise Rugendyke

READ / OH, BROTHERS!

Bestselling, sad-girl-lit author Sally Rooney takes on her most ambitious novel yet.

Love her novels or loathe them, a new Sally Rooney release is one of the publishing events of the year. Not many authors can prompt bookstores to open at midnight. She has become known as the voice of Millennial women (sometimes positively, sometimes not), but Rooney upsets expectations with Intermezzo ($35), which follows brothers Peter and Ivan Koubek: one a troubled, high-flying Dublin lawyer in his 30s, the other an introverted, 22-year-old competitive chess-player. Intermezzo is a good book, better than most, but it’s more hard work – and more heavy-handed – than Rooney’s others and lacks the magic and propulsion of my favourite, Conversations with Friends. Cue the debates! Melanie Kembrey

LISTEN / ALL IN THEIR HEADS

Were the girls faking it for attention? Hysterical investigates.

In 2011, a high-school girl in Le Roy, a town in upstate New York, started displaying strange, uncontrollable physical tics and vocal outbursts reminiscent of Tourette syndrome. Then another case emerged. And another. The numbers started mounting. Dan Taberski, who made Missing Richard Simmons, 9/12 and Running From COPS, tells the story of what happened next in the podcast Hysterical. Was it a case of mass “conversion disorder”, a kind of mass hysteria? Were the girls faking it for attention? Or was it the result of a toxic chemical spill from years before? As Taberski discovers, the story strikes at the heart of our fear of the unknown, our need for a scapegoat and the tendency of the world to not believe young women. Barry Divola

WEAR / FIT FOR A QUEEN

Treat your feet like royalty this summer with Princess approved thongs.

Do thongs belong on the runway? Yes, if they’re the work of Serbian designer Roksanda Ilincic, a favourite of both the Princess of Wales and Princess Beatrice. Ilincic’s first collaboration with ortho-friendly brand FitFlop includes styles in lime, tomato and fairy floss, with the all-leather upper bringing an unmistakable air of luxe to an off-duty staple ($220). Just don’t expect to see the royal lovelies stepping out in them any time soon, what with palace protocol and all.
Melissa Singer

PLAY / WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN

Horizon of Khufu, a 45-minute time-virtual reality travel adventure to Egypt, 4500 years ago.

Australia’s fascination with Egypt continues. The latest brick in the pyramid is Horizon of Khufu, a 45-minute time-travel adventure that arrives fresh from sell-out runs in Europe and North America. Superb virtual-reality tech and a heap of scholarly research combine to transport you, by way of a headset, 4500 years back in time. Navigate the corridors and burial chambers of the Great Pyramid of Giza, tomb to fourth-dynasty pharaoh Khufu; witness his (yikes!) embalming; and ascend to the pyramid’s summit by way of a floating stone platform to enjoy 360 views of Cairo. Your guides are puckish Egyptologist Mona and the imperious Bastet, a large, talking cat. At times, the experience is so immersive that you have to sneak a peek beneath the headset to believe you really are on terra firma. Immense fun. Fever Pavilion, Sydney Olympic Park until New Year; from $27.
More cities planned. Sharon Bradley

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