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My Fashion Revolution: Hats
I understand that men’s hats are out of fashion for men. I wear hats. Let’s be clear. A men’s hat has a 360-degree brim. A cap may have a bill. A cap is not a hat. I wear hats.
Hats come in many varieties, the most popular of which is the fedora. There are also the bowler (or derby), the top hat, the skimmer (or boater), the Homburg (which some class as a variation of the fedora), the trilby (small brimmed fedora), the pork pie (think Breaking Bad), the Outback, the cowboy hat, and many more.
I wear straw hats in warm weather.
Here is where I today announce that (1) I understand the traditional rules of hat wearing and (2) I plan to ignore them.
Traditional Rule #1. Straw Hat Season. Straw hats are acceptable only from May 25 through September 15. That may have made sense in jolly old England’s seasons. In the United States, we have a much larger window of warm weather. Especially in the South. The Traditional (English) rule makes no sense here.
Henceforth, I will begin wearing my straw hats when it is warm. I will stop when it is not warm.
Traditional Rule #2. Indoor Hat Wearing. Men may wear hats inside “public buildings” but not in restaurants, churches, or residences. If you believe the old movies, the only places men’s hat wearing was forbidden was churches. Today, cap wearers wear their caps everywhere, especially in restaurants. Yes, they look like buffoons when they do. But if they are not playing baseball, cap-wearers look like buffoons anyway. Especially when the cap is worn backward. Or has an extra wide, flat bill. (Have I offended anyone, yet?)
Henceforth, I will wear my hat everywhere but churches and private residences. Restaurants are fair game, especially if it is cold.
My rules. My way.
My go-to hat is a taupe-colored, foldable Borsalino fedora. But I get the most compliments on my black Homburg (which I wear only when wearing a coat and tie). For straw hats, I favor the Optimo crown, but I wear several different hats (fedora, gambler, homburg and others).
My motto is, “Men should wear hats.” The last of a dying breed, I fear.
Are there any other hat-wearers out there?
Published in General
This is why my bicycle helmet is a French-imperialist style pith helmet, which I’ve modified with straps and harness from a regular bicycle helmet. It’s dorkier than a regular helmet and probably doesn’t meet ANSI standards, but I think the greater risk is skin cancers. Dad had some melanomas cut off and I’ve had some pre-cancerous things frozen off. I started wearing it five years ago and should have started a lot sooner. It has the added advantage of making those 90+ degree days a lot more comfortable.
One, you’ve got a fantastic idea there.
Two, regular bike helmets are dorky. A bike pith helmet is eccentric. You’re ahead of the game.
I have never worn hats, save cowboy hats when I did field and fencing work in the New Mexico sun as a young man. But I’ve long thought that the third best thing about being born in the early 20th century would have been to live through the peak of men’s fashion — including, most importantly, the hats and trench coats. But I’m a product of the 70s, an era from which, mercifully, no cultural artifacts remain.
If my wardrobe included more than blue jeans and black tee shirts, I’d incorporate a hat.
Hat guy here. I currently live near Rochester, NY, which is not known for warm weather (we have an inch of fresh snow on the ground this evening, and had 2 inches this morning), so a wool fedora works well for much of the year. I occasionally wear a “driving cap,” but most of the time I want a hat with a brim all around to shield my face, ears, and neck from sun, rain, and snow. A full-brimmed hat plus a decent coat significantly reduces the need for an umbrella while still remaining comfortably dry.
I concur with straw versus wool based on temperature, not calendar. I wear a Panama in the 3 or 4 warm months here.
I will wear the hat indoors until I get to a place where I can put it down, whether a coat rack, an office table, or an extra chair at my table in the restaurant. I do not think it proper to wear the hat while eating, while sitting in an audience, or while meeting indoors with someone else. If I get into a real conversation with someone in the hallway before getting to a place to put my hat down, I will take it off and hold it in my hand (assuming I don’t have several things already in both hands).
Pants with a waist just below your chest! Ties, patterned ties, as wide as a canoe paddle! Count me out.
As to hats, let the word go forth from this time and place
Contrary to myth, Kennedy wore the traditional top hat at his inauguration.
I have worn a fedora-like hat ever since I figured out that direct sunlight gave me migraine. Under those circumstances, I could not care less about how I look. That I regularly receive compliments for my hat is confusing, unless it is praise for covering up even more of me.
For the same reason (the sun reason, not the cover-up reason; I have no needle tracks) I wear long sleeves even in summer. There are worse fates than being hot.
I was a deputy sheriff in the 70s. At that time people knew enough about hat etiquette that we were specifically trained to not remove our hats when responding to a call. Need to have both hands available in case things go south. I was raised with proper manners, and for a long time it felt wierd to go into someone’s house and leave my hat on.
And the hat was part of the uniform. If you got out of the patrol car, you put on your hat.
On that last part, I agree. Half the fun of getting a new baseball cap is still breaking in the bill and bending it just right so that your eyes are protected on the periphery.
The only thing dumber than wearing your bill like it’s a dinner plate is wearing your hat with the “authentic merchandise” stickers and tag hanging off it.
Or wearing a baseball cap when you’re a football coach. I’m a Steeler fan, but football coaches should look like this:
A favorite photo in my collection. If I ever find the negative for it maybe I’ll find that it has a sharper focus than this scan. I don’t know who took it, but I’m not in the boat. My father, mother (with legs dangling overboard) and my grandfather are in it, though. Grandpa may have worn that same fedora and dark blue suit for Sundays and other times he went out for the last three decades of his life. By the time of this photo the cloth was shiny but not threadbare. We have other photos of him in farmers’ overalls and flannel shirts. And like others of his generation and place, underneath he wore a long-sleeved union suit, summer and winter.
That’s the way I remember him (and I still miss him every day, even though he has been gone for 38 years). So it was a bit of a surprise to see some recently unearthed photos from the 1920s. I had not known he was such a natty dresser then. (We’re coming up on three years since my parents died. I miss them every day, too.)
3. Welders. While welding.
My dad wore a fedora to church. I even remember shopping with him for a new hat at Sears and that hats had specific sizes. Dad was a 7 and 5/8 long oval as I recall. I have pictures of both of my grandfathers, probably taken in the early 40s, wearing fedoras. They look like gangsters of the day.
And a grey houndstooth trilby for all other occasions.
I’ve looked at straw hats for the summer, but not really found anything I liked. I did find one that seemed nice in St. Thomas on vacation, but not so much when I got home – definitely a vacation hat. I looked at buying a Panama when I was in Panama, but I could never find a price/quality point that fit well. I’ve generally worn a bush hat for hiking, but my beloved has pushed me to wearing caps instead as I’ve gotten older. She insists they take a decade off my appearance. I don’t care much, but if it makes her happy . . . .
Hats should be removed when entering a home or a church, before sitting in a restaurant or anytime indoors when you are speaking to a lady.
There is a story at our firm from around the early sixties. The managing partner, son of one of the founders, arrive at the elevator one morning to discover one of the new associates waiting for the elevator without a hat. Kennedy was President and he didn’t wear a hat, and hat sales were dying. He looked at the young associate and said, severely: “_____ men wear hats.” The associate understood what he was being told and returned home to get properly dressed.
Today our associates complain they aren’t sufficiently entertained.
flip-flop, flip-flop. Because he’s wrong too?
There is a world of space between slob and showing off. Besides, hats have social benefits. Since I am the only person wearing a hat, people seem to avoid me on the bus. I often am allowed to ride without anyone sitting next to me, or am the last person to have the seat next to them taken.
If I’m wearing a coat, I’m wearing a hat. (I’ve yet to figure out how to combine hat wearing and putting my long hair up during the warm months.)
maybe you just need a taller hat to fit the hair under it.
I wear straw hats in the summer. In the winter it depends. Could be a wool cap, or a wool hat. It depends on where I am going and how windy it is. I think baseball caps are the most puzzling thing going. I don’t know why anyone would wear one.
Yup. I don’t even know how to walk out the door without a cap on. Finding the right cap to wear sometimes delays me. I have a collection scattered throughout the garage and house, from the ragged and caked with drywall dust, to those that are new and clean. When heading to church I don’t want a grungy one, even though I’ll usually just leave it in the car.
Although my post was about men’s hats, I have been delighted to see omen wearing fedoras of late. That said, I think women in caps with a pony tail hanging out the back is an attractive look.
I like the idea of wearing a straw hat in the summer but it just doesn’t work for me. I must have an odd-shaped skull or low-friction hair or something. If I wear a full-brim hat and there is a 1 mph breeze blowing, that hat is gone with the wind. A baseball cap will work up to maybe 6 mph.
Thank you for broaching this topic. It is an issue that has been close to my heart all of my adult life. As I see it, there a functional component and a cultural component.
I stand on function over form invariably. My hat choice is determined by the weather and the job at hand. My wife does not always approve. I take her advice nominally, but understand, I am not bullheaded. I’m open to constructive criticism.
The cultural aspect, I see just as clearly. When a man removes his hat (cap, etc.), he is showing respect. He is demonstrating that something else is more important than himself and his persona. That ” something else” could be another person, their home, or in the case of the church, his Superior’s home. In our culture, this gesture does not apply to women. When I see a man with a hat on when he should have it off, I see it as another example of men appropriating feminine characteristics. On the other hand, perhaps, he does not know any better or just does not care? That is a damning observation. To me this falls into the same category as opening a door for a woman, holding a chair for her, and saying ” Yes, ma’am”, “No ma’am” or “Yes, sir”, “No, sir”. Showing respect for others in polite society, is what makes a civil society civil. It is the lubrication that we need to get along with each other. It shows that the individual has chosen to fit in with the larger society and has accepted its values and its cultural norms. It answers the question, “Is he one of us?”
There, I’ve got it off my chest. I hope I have not offended anyone. David Carroll popped at relief value that released this pent up rant. It is not his fault.
So, am I out of line? Am I unsocialize in our current society? Have I got my feet stuck in the mud of the 1950’s? Do I need therapy? Will my Ricochet colleagues help me reform?
Indeed.
No
Probably. Join the club.
Not necessarily, further observation is required.
Probably, but that’s a different topic.
Bwahahahaha. I mean, no.
In various sources from yesteryear, I’ve seen males described as being without a hat. If memory serves, it was usually an indication that the person was either too poor to afford one, or was in some kind of distress, or just not quite in his right mind. Under most other circumstancs, most males would have something on their heads when outdoors. Has anyone else come across this? No examples spring to mind.
I suppose the reason why hats fell out of favor is that they really don’t serve the purpose they once did. We’re usually going from one building to another, in climate-controlled vehicles. Most of us don’t travel by foot all that often. Do people wear hats more often in walking cities, like NY?
Also, sunglasses serve one of the hat’s purposes, are cheaply obtained, and store more easily when not needed.
In the construction trades, or for outdoor recreation, hats are a bit more common, are they not?
There’s a scene you’ll see in old movies, particularly noir films (my favorite genre), in which a hard-boiled guy is standing out in the rain (waiting for the bad guy to arrive, usually). He’s wearing a hat and a trench coat, isn’t carrying an umbrella — and yet you can imagine that he’s dry. It always struck me as the height of practicality for the serious urban man with a job to do.
You might be trying to wear too small of a hat that sits too high on your head. I did that until I shopped at an actual hat store and got properly fitted.
I’ve told the story before, but when my children were in high school (about 15 years ago), I’d show up at school in my suit and tie, black wool overcoat, and black wool fedora, and their classmates were convinced I worked for either the CIA or the FBI.
If you take your hat off every time your in another’s home, what do you do about hat hair?