PRINCE HARRY has conceded that Nazi regalia was a “poor choice of costume” but what exactly is appropriate attire for a Natives and Colonials party? Several lithesome girls at Richard Meade’s birthday bash opted for blacking up and running around half-naked with spears. But why not add a bone through the nose and get a mate in a missionary outfit to stand in a cooking pot? Or if you really want to make an entrance, a group of you could recreate the Jallianwala Bagh massacre or the potato famine.

Young aristos seem fixated with the glory days of British Empire — Prince William chose the theme Out of Africa for his 21st birthday — and small wonder. How today’s rich blade must regret not being born into an age when his debauches would be hushed up and indulged as “young master’s high spirits” rather than turned into “Cocaine Hell” headlines. When an old Etonian was assured a place at papa’s Oxford college instead of toiling hard to compete with comprehensive school swots. And when he would sail into a life of unquestioned command in some imperial sinecure rather than grub around as a runner for his mate’s dad’s TV production company.

Yet considering the king’s ransom spent on his education you would expect Harry’s costume to demonstrate some breadth of historical knowledge, some effort even. A crummy swastika armband and an army surplus shirt has not merely offended many across the world — and got republicans such as me gleefully dusting down our tumbrils — it also looks rather lazy. At least Prince William in his lion costume, managed to convey “I am king of the jungle” in a cuddly, strokeable way.

Harry should have forsaken Cotswold Costumes with its selection of hilarious SS uniforms — just the thing for celebrating Auschwitz liberation day — and headed for Angels, London’s finest costumiers. Although its theatrical wing supplied the uniforms for Schindler’s List, Angels won’t lend Nazi outfits as fancy dress, perhaps unsurprisingly since the firm was established in 1840 by a Jewish tailor. “We don’t do any dictators,” says the manager Emma Angel, his great-great-great-granddaughter. “We wouldn’t lend out Saddam, for example.” Or Mugabe either, which might disappoint Harry’s girlfriend Chelsy, whose father is said to be embroiled in President Bob’s 21st-century version of colonials and natives.

Ms Angel would have steered the Prince towards the third floor, a magical Mr Benn emporium of marabou and sequins, where he could have selected sparkling maharajah robes or a dashing safari suit, pith helmet and Sam Browne combo. Or on the fourth floor, where dozens of bunny and bear heads stare dolefully from their shelves, he and William could have found tabloid anonymity in what the Angels brochure calls the “chateaubriand of fancy dress”, a pantomime horse.

Fancy dress releases the alter ego trapped in workaday attire. Just as the mouse-frau is drawn towards a PVC Catwoman suit and the alpha rugby club male finds any excuse to don some fishnets, Harry is obviously longing to throw off the constraints of his son-of-Diana, aid-packing, Aids-victim hugging saintly garb and be just plain wicked. And who can truly blame him?

Yet if his intention was to shock, he ought to try something a little more contemporary. The suicide-bomber look could be achieved at home with his old Combined Cadet Force fatigues, a tea towel and some painted toilet roll tubes. Or he might copy a former colleague at my old firm’s Christmas party who dressed as Osama bin Laden. So convincing was his outfit that when his taxi got into a stand-off with another car on a narrow street, neither prepared to give way, Osama only had to get out and start ranting in cod Arabic for the other driver to beat a rapid retreat. And this was before 9/11. Harry, it would have so much more impact now.

But if the members of Harry’s fast set care for him maybe they should redirect their revels into safer territory. Ms Angel says that the Seventies are very popular but that is probably a bit too cheerfully democratic for the tyros of Club H. But the most enduringly popular theme of all time, the 18th century, is both glamorous and regal. Harry and Chelsy would look so fetching in powdered wigs and glorious Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette outfits. And while they got off their heads, millions would be happily knitting.

The Camberwell look

WHILE I am by no means a slavish follower of fashion, if I see a new look around town and in enough magazines, I like to give it a go. Particularly when it costs nothing. So the other day I took the lead of supermodels and stylists worldwide and tucked my jeans into my boots. I thought I looked rather dashing and rangey, with a hint of principal boy.

“What the hell do you look like?” asked my friend at the school gates. “Have you been riding a horse? Are you reading Jilly Cooper?” But, I protested, this is how we’re all wearing our boots this season. “Well, I’m not,” she declared. Sigh. Sometimes it is hard being cutting edge in Camberwell.

Body warmth

I BOUGHT a newspaper from a woman outside the Tube station on an afternoon turned abruptly Arctic by the departing sun. “I bet you’re freezing standing there,” I said.

“No, I’m all right, love,” she replied cheerfully. “I’m going through the menopause at the moment, and I’m boiling hot indoors. But out here, I’m the perfect temperature.” Which is, I suppose, something to look forward to.

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