So what does your mask actually say about you?

It was only a matter of time: Burberry has launched the first official designer face mask, because – surprise, surprise – those Dolce& Banana/Guccy/Channel ones are all counterfeits.

Available in its trademark beige check, you too could have one for just … £90. That’s R2,000. No, the choking fit I’m having is not corona-related. So what does your mask actually say about you?

Full disclosure: I have never bought a mask. I haven’t had to. It was February when my son gave me my first mask, purchased from one of those doomsday websites for people who long ago built bunkers and stocked up on powdered eggs, iodine, toilet paper, tablets, and guns.

It’s a full-cover helmet and will prove useful if we are ever bombed with mustard gas.

A few days later, Himself handed me my second, the sort a tradesman might wear when dealing with toxins, with 10 replaceable filters.

Then masks started arriving thick and fast: a box of blue disposable ones; a consignment of chemically impregnated cream and-red fabric “snoods” to be worn around the neck and rolled up over the face and then, mercifully, a pack of simple stretchy washable ones.

Hurrah! Easy-to-wear masks that I can throw in the washing machine, that pass the flame test – I can’t blow a candle out through them – and are available in every colour, so long as it’s black.

This was the perfect one for me. But I will admit to being mask-curious. In the supermarket, I admired a couple in matching leopard-print masks – his in monochrome, hers classic brown-gold.

I’ve seen sequins, gay pride rainbows and a plastic-fronted one so that deaf people can lipread (doesn’t it fog up?).

There are masks with zips for “safe sipping”; masks with flashing lights, pearls and dinosaurs; and even masks boldly declaring your political affiliations (with punch-in-the-face optional).

I then met a friend for dinner who had coordinated her white polka-dotted blouse with a black polka-dotted mask.

And I say, why not? Just because something is functional doesn’t mean it has to be ugly too.

A fashion mask is not necessary, but we take our pleasures where we can. And if you hate masks, you sure as hell aren’t going to enjoy a ventilator.

Jennie Ridyard

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