Time to join the fan club

As summer temperatures continue to soar, fans—long considered a fashion anachronism—are back in the style spotlight, says Jack Watkins

- Jack Watkins

SINCE summer first was leafy, man has reached for a branch of a tree or a large leaf to dispel the heated air and ward off flies,' wrote MacIver Percival in The Fan Book more than a century ago. Early civilisations went an artistic step further and created ceremonial fans, two of which were discovered in Tutankhamun’s tomb. Personal folding fans as fashion accessories were present in Japan from about the 6th century. Percival, however, was writing in 1920, by which time usage was on the wane; his book was aimed at collectors.

Yet fans, it seems, are back: they have been observed once again on public transport during this scorching British summer, compensating for ill-equipped air-conditioning systems. They were spotted at this year's Wimbledon Championships, at the Lord's Test and, a colleague confirms, at Glastonbury. An old-school print journalist might reluctantly attribute this to the declining habit of buying newspapers, a reckless oversight, as the good old daily rag can be swiftly repurposed in emergencies as a fan (or even as a hat). There is, however, something timelessly elegant about a daintily fluttered hand fan. With temperatures set to rise for the foreseeable future, has the fan's time come again?