A Heads Up on Hats For Men
Hats for men are back and I, for one could not be happier. I remember, as a very young child ,that my grandfather always wore a hat. He removed it in the house and in church and he “tipped” it to grown up ladies. In summer, he sometimes wore a straw boater, which I considered particularly dashing.
In winter, it was a Fedora. There was something very re-assuring and manly about my grandfather and his hat. There was solidity in the change of hats with the changes of season and a comforting reassurance in his hat etiquette.
The Demise of the Hat
It was Jack Kennedy who killed the hat for men. In the 1960’s he was young and brash and a breath of fresh air with his bare headed touseled look. He made men in hats look like old fashioned fuddy duddies and a generational divide developed.
Old men wore hats and tipped them to ladies. Young men went bare headed. Bare-headed meant virile, creative, and hip…. And that’s the way it was until Generation Y came along.
Maybe it was movies like The Blues Brothers and maybe it was just the cyclical nature of fashion and the celebs who set the trends, but young men have embraced hats in the past two years, and made them their own… adding a dollop of 21st century style to what at first glance seems like a retro trend. Hats are hip. Hats are cool and haberdashers are happy.
Everything old is new again. Young guys in hats have great style and it is a completely different look from my grandfather. I wish, though, that they would take their hats off indoors and maybe give an occasional hat tip somewhere other than the internet.
An updated Fedora
The Porkpie makes a comeback on the fashion runway.
Johnny Depp sports a suave Fedora
Bradd Pitt is into the newsboy look
Two very cool Gen-Y guys in hats