‘It Ain’t the Hat, It’s How Ya Wear It’

Even before I actually watched any of the most recent Trump inauguration, I was aware that the soon-to-be First Lady was being noticed not just for her obvious elegancy but also specifically for the hat she wore. I was on my way back to hopefully a warm house from breaking ice for livestock, feeding horses and scouting for some easy wood to cut. The truck radio was working even if the heater was not. But this late in the morning we had already warmed up to about 10 degrees ahead of Washington D.C. The reporter on the radio made a point of commenting on that hat which seemed to be the most defining visual of the moment, other than the man who was about to become the 47^th president of the United States.

I got back into the house and near the fireplace in time to see the whole affair for myself.

Before I add my own lame impressions on the subject, I will offer two others, each delivered by television personalities (well, one actually has a personality while the other leaves some questions) from each end of the political spectrum.

Greg Gutfeld’s first impulse was to compare the look to Lee Van Cleef in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which I found some merit in. The other I have to offer is Jimmy Fallon of the Tonight Show, who came out wearing a similar hat, just not shaped as well and with a brim that had no real shape at all. Fallon’s line was that he wanted to see who looked better in it: him, Melania or the Hamburglar. Don’t bother to search for the clip—it isn’t worth the trouble, just like most of that host’s offerings. I am told by some that he was actually funny at one time in the past. I will have to take their word for that.

The hat created enough media notice that the milliner who made it got a few minutes on CBS Mornings. Eric Javits described it as an “iconic boater,” which I will have to take his word for. He obviously has wider classifications for such things. To my country eye, the hat would be close to the flat-brimmed and crowned ones common to the buckaroo country of the Great Basin. Regardless, Javits assured it was both “understated” and “elegant”.

All of the milliner’s words might be true, but my first thoughts as I watched Mrs. Trump with the hat sitting evenly on her head as the brim came exactly to the top of her eyes, leaving just that most dignified face calmly framed between it and the double-breasted navy wool coat, were of something an “old timer” commented on far back in my youth. The old cowboy responded to the remarks one of his friends had said about the out-of-the-box new hat that someone was wearing while visiting a horse show. The hat was a good one and certainly “high dollar”. But it looked out of place on someone who was trying to look a role that he simply didn’t fit.

Melania Trump’s hat fit exactly the message of an administration returning with a clear-eyed determination, one with clarity gained from the experience of both the first administration and the last four years. There was style and authority reflected by not just the hat but the confidence with which it was worn. I suspect that the lady intends to be more visible and publicly active than before, but not in the pushy look-at-me-style of late. The media will be dealing with a different First Lady than the one they treated so badly the first time around.

That media has made a weak attempt to take off on “the Hamburglar” comparison, but it has fallen flat. This is a different day and time than before. The president and his lady are following perhaps the worst examples to hold either position. Both couples seem to be well-matched.

To make a final observation, I will return to the felt headwear that many call “cowboy hats,” ones that I simply call hats. I was somewhere in the range of a high school senior or the first couple of years in college when I was listening to a conversation between some of the more accomplished horse trainers in the area. I was riding some colts under the keen eye of the senior member of the group. We had all retreated to the shade provided by the hall of the barn to escape the summer sun as the other two drove up. The pair had just returned from the Austin area and had some Shiner beers with them — or maybe I should say they had a few left. (This was back in that ancient time before it was sold north of the Brazos River.) They wanted to ask my mentor about some finishing touches on a cutting horse they shared ownership of.

After about an hour of detailed discussion, the session finished. My mentor had headed out toward where he and I had tied two colts. I had stayed back to force the cap off one more fairly warm Shiner with a pocket knife—no twist-off caps for Shiners in those days—and heard the final exchange of the pair before they got up to head for their truck.

“You think we will ever see L.N. wearing anything but some old dirty black hat?” questioned one.

The other answered, “I doubt it. But on him, it’s a crown.”