“And if you go chasing rabbits, and you know you’re going to fall,” sang Ms Grace Slick in “White Rabbit”, Jefferson Airplane’s 1967 retelling of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, a possible – OK, definite – allegory on the subject of drugs. “Tell ’em a hookah-smoking caterpillar has given you the call.”

While the Netherlands as a nation has been noted for its relaxed attitude towards narcotics, the particular white rabbit they’ve been following for the past 60 years is a far more innocent a figure than Mr Lewis Carroll’s pill-pushing leporid. First sketched in 1955, Miffy (originally known as Nijntje, a shortening of konijntje – little rabbit – if you’re Dutch, or particularly devious at Scrabble) is the handiwork of illustrator Mr Dick Bruna, who drew the character after seeing a little rabbit scampering on the sand dunes while on a family holiday.

Miffy has since sold some 85 million books worldwide, in more than 50 languages. And, in arriving on the scene some two decades before Hello Kitty – another anthropomorphic drawing noted for its elegant simplicity, and a character who interestingly was inspired by Alice’s cat in Mr Carroll’s tales – we’d like to think Miffy could outwit her Japanese rival in a fight, should it come to it.

Perhaps it was a sense of national pride that brought Amsterdam-based skatewear brand Pop Trading Company to draw on the Dutch bunny, who features across its SS19 collection. Sadly, Mr Bruna is no longer around to see it – he died in 2017, aged 89 – but the cotton-jersey hoodie featured below might just have captured the spirit of the final Miffy book he penned, Miffy Is Naughty. We’d also like to point you in the direction of this pair of socks, spun in Japan and, again, adorned with the white rabbit. And don’t forget this cotton-corduroy baseball cap. Because remember what the dormouse said: feed your head.