The story goes that the tradition of men wearing hats in public came crashing to an end when Pres. John F. Kennedy showed up to give his Inaugural Address sans headwear. The truth is that the period of time when men stopped appearing in public with a hat was actually rather brief. Next time you go outside you should take a look around and see just how many men are sporting hats compared to those going topless. The difference is that pre-JFK hats represented a gamut of styles while the overwhelming majority of hats that men wear today are baseball caps, although skullcaps are making inroads.
Every once in a while it looks like stylish headgear may be poised to make a comeback. And then just as quickly the comeback fizzles and you look around again and what do you see? Men in baseball caps. Too bad because a number of different types of hats are available that won’t make you look stupid. At least, no more stupid than wearing a baseball cap with the logo of a perennial cellar dweller.
Gatsby Hat
One of those attempted comebacks of hats may arrive when a new version of “The Great Gatsby” hits cinemas. You may also hear this particular hat described as a driving or roadster cap. Just about any movie made about the 1920s or 1930s that features a stylish young man who tools around in a convertible roadster will be wearing this type of cap. It fits more snugly on the head than other types of hats, thus making it more appropriate for wear while driving a convertible.
The Fedora
The fedora was the go-to hat for much of the 20th century until dead voters in Illinois swung the Electoral College tally in 1960 to the Senator with the funny accent. The traditional fedora is made of felt and sports a brim wide enough to keep rain off your face. Rather than describing the style, just think 1930s gangsters or Indiana Jones. Another major difference between the headgear of yesterday and today is that there just isn’t much customization and personalizing you can do with a baseball cap vis a vis positioning. The fedora, on the other hand, is a hat that easily lets you make a statement about yourself according to how it sits atop your head. Pushed back to reveal more of the forehead and you’ve got a relaxed and cool kind of attitude. If you want to be more mysterious and perhaps a little dangerous, pull the brim down over your eyebrows.
Yeah, sure, today it would take a sense of assurance and rebellion of a majestic nature for a grown man to go out in public wearing a beanie today, but it wasn’t always thus. If you could go back in time and show up on a college campus in the 1920, you would see propeller hats sitting quite comfortably on the heads of big burly football players and the Jazz Age equivalent of nerds and geeks alike. Where do you think the idea for Jughead to wear a beanie in the Archie comics originated? I personally would love to the beanie make a comeback. But then again, I’m beyond bored with the whole concept of trying to turn the baseball cap into a thing of high fashion merely by making it out of different materials or emblazoning it with something besides the logo of a sports team. By the way, the type of skullcap called a beanie today is not what I’m referring to.
Bowler
It takes a certain definite sense of adventurousness to go out in public in a bowler. Jude Law carries this hat off with inappropriate aplomb as Dr. Watson. While Law looks great in a bowler, Dr. Watson should not come across so confident. Of course, it took a lesser sense of adventurousness and confidence to wear a bowler in Victorian London that it would today, but still. The key to choosing a bowler is to avoid cheap quality and look for a strength of material that can withstand dings and dents and general abuse because the cap of a bowler is particularly subject to visible damage that will destroy the very sense of high artifice you want to achieve.
Beret
If you are French, a girl, a beatnik or fashion yourself a philosopher you can get away with wearing a beret. Otherwise, it is probably safe to say this particular hat will make a comeback in American only among those with an almost fervent wish to deny assimilation into the culture. I actually hung out with a guy who daily wore a beret when I lived in Atlanta in the early 1980s. He looked good, but I must reveal that the real reason he wore it was because it so stylishly covered up the fact that he was already going bald by age 22.
We learn that Hank Hill cannot stand pork pie hats in an episode of “King of the Hill” when Bill Dauterive admits he adopted this incredibly fashionable type of hat as a means of changing his personality. That is the exactly what a pork pie hat has the capacity to do. The pork pie hat is an iconic structure of fashion to the rude boy image and as such your best chances of seeing it worn in public is to show up at ska concert. The pork pie hat gained popularity in England during the 1960s as standard issue for the fashionable Mod movement. It is a measure of the versatility of the pork pie hat that in addition to politically active rockers, you can find it sitting atop heads ranging from architect Frank Lloyd Wright to Gene Hackman in “The French Connection.
Straw Hat
Alternately known as a skimmer or boater, the straw hat is also a remnant of the Roaring Twenties. This particular hat is much better suited to warm weather locales or worn only during the summer. Nothing goes better with a straw boater than a white linen suit. For this reason, those wishing to be seen as a dandy are better suited to this hat. Unless, of course, you chose a career in law and live in a sultry southern city. If so, then you absolutely must accessorize with suspenders and a handy handkerchief. A skimmer or boater is distinguished from the somewhat similar Panama hat by being round and hard while a Panama hat has a floppier brim.
Fez
I actually own a fez, but it’s one of the smaller and wider types rather than the more traditional fez that rises high above the head. I mean, c’mon, I bought the thing in the Middle Eastern section of the global village at the back of EPCOT. You should consider experimenting with a fez if you are looking to create a sense that you are absolutely immune to popular trends. Almost no other type of headwear can immediately cause people to see you as a rebellious figure while also making you look pretty cool. Matt Smith did much to make the fez a stylish hat when one showed up on his head in “Doctor Who.”
Logic dictates why the Panama Hat is so much more prevalent where the sun bakes the heat into the air with greater ferocity. Panamas are surprisingly adept at protecting your face from direct sunlight and then you have the bonus of their being so light on the noggin that you can actually forget you are even wearing a hat. If you consider going the way of Panama make sure that you find one that is made the way the best have been made for a century. This means looking for a label that indicates it was at least made in Central America and, best of all, made in Ecuador. That country (not Panama, surprisingly) grows the high quality toquilla straw for suiting the purpose of this hat.
Top Hat
The top hat is kind of like the more conservative and rigid grandfather of the bowler. A top hat is perfectly suited for formal occasions, but tends to look really out of place in less formal situations. That’s being kind. I was known to sport a top hat to inappropriate places when I was in my late teens and early twenties and though I personally appreciated the juxtaposition between what I was going for and the reality of what I was achieving, you might have a lower tolerance for people thinking (not always silently) that you look like an idiot.
