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Aage Thaarup left his job in a Copenhagen department store in his teens to conquer the world. By the late 1930s, he had a shop in London and was milliner to the royal family. Revealed to the world by Cecil Beaton, his famous customers included Wallis Simpson, Margot Fonteyn and Marlene Dietrich – but the pinnacle of his career came with the creation of the tricorn hat worn by the Queen annually between 1953 and 1986 at the Trooping the Colour ceremony. Declared insolvent at least twice, Thaarup’s obituary in The Times noted that ‘He was not hardened by fame or fortune. He wore a cheerful disposition and a bow-tie always at a ten-to-four angle’. Thaarup's autobiography tracks his ever buoyant journey from rags to riches to bankruptcy but always positively onwards.