According to numerous theories it is primarily headgear that makes the man. In fact, this is quite right: perhaps you remember from your preschool years that it was enough to put on a miner’s hat or nurse’s cap and right away you were racing to grab a pickaxe and run to a coalface or reach for a sharp object, which for want of anything better could be taken for a syringe, and began to show an alarming inclination to prick anyone you could lay your hands on. Awareness of the power our headgear may give long ago permeated even to the Dadaist art, distinctly epitomized in Max Ernst’s 1920 collage with the all revealing title The Hat Makes the Man. (Do the colourful rays of light coming from the hats symbolize the power that emanates from all kinds of headgear?)

But what makes us the Europeans? It is the immortal woolen beret, of course!

This advert comes from the January 2011 issue of Harper’s Magazine, which, as you must know, offers something more than just sophisticated adverts. Reading this with the beret on your head will make you not merely a European but a real cosmopolitan − and all this for slightly above $20!