Men in Hats

After a long absence, the feature, Men In Hats as returned.

To the right is a photograph of the English novelist and essayist G.K. Chesterton. For those not in the know, Chesterton wrote the novel The Man Who Was Thursday, the Father Brown mystery stories and was pretty much the man responsible for the serious appreciation for the writings of Charles Dickens. He was also an English apologist for the Roman Catholic Church and was, for many years, the most quoted man in the English language except for Shakespeare.

But being able to string words together does not mean good taste in hats. In the photograph Chesterton is shown wearing a trilby hat. Please note the shape of the crown and brim, especially the dent of the crown and the "V" shape of the front of the brim. It's a true trilby hat, not what some hat stores call a trilby (which run from porkpies to fedoras).

This particular hat was a bad choice for G.K. The hat appears too small and it is not a very good shape for his build. A much better choice for him would have been something along the lines of a properly fitted bowler, a deerstalker or even a skull cap as was worn by John Owen.

By the way, the name and shape of the trilby hat came from the novel Trilby by George du Maurier. This is the novel that introduced the character Svengali to the world.