Men In Hats

Here we have two images of the bowler/derby hat.
For those of a younger age the bowler may be identified with Charlie Chaplin, or Laurel and Hardy. Graybeards, while including the comedians in the derby wearing fellowship, primarily associate the bowler with the toff, such as John Steed of the Avengers, or with thugs, such as the turn of the century criminal gang known as the Plug-Uglies.
One rarely sees derbies worn nowadays except in Great Britain among the moneyed or in Bolivia among everyone. The Bolivians picked up the bowler habit from British railway workers back in the 1920s and have never given it up.
The bowler was originally developed as a sort of helmet for horsemen and game-keepers, and is still worn among the horsey set. It is also the hat the leveled the field, hat-wise, among the classes in England. Just a few years after the bowler was invented for the wealthy it was being worn by the poor and working class in London, and the wealthy. Before the bowler the wealthy wore high hats and the poor and working men wore caps or slouch hats. But, of course, it's not always the hat that one wears that defines the man, but the way the man wears the hat.
Who should wear a derby? Why not go with tradition? The toff, the villain, the jester and the horse rider. And the Bolivian.