As long time readers of this broadside are aware there has been a long running occasional feature called Men in Hats. The subject of the feature is, well, men's hats and men wearing hats. Sometimes there are histories of hats, famous men and their hats, and, as much of it as there is anymore, the culture of hats in the modern world. This is, in some ways, odd because your faithful correspondent usually wears only two types of hats (technically one type of hat and one type of cap) -- the straw boater between the Memorial Day and Labor Day and a beret the rest of the year. There is the occasional wearing of a cheap faux Panama hat worn during gardening, but really does not count because the gardening hat is not the public face of yours truly.
Be it known that this writer is a believer in men wearing hats; not as a fashion statement but more as a self-proclamation of identification and a completion of one's daily dressing. Back many years ago when your faithful correspondent was trapped in the jaws of the public school system in Southern California he came across a book in the public library entitled "Call Me Mister." At the time of the discovery the book was fairly old; perhaps first published in the mid-1950s, if not before. It was one of those books that nobody bothers to write anymore -- books for people transitioning between childhood and adulthood trying to figure out how they should present themselves to the world. It was a book about male etiquette, how to dress like a man and prepare to go out and apply for jobs and such. One of the chapters in the book dealt with men wearing hats. There was a sort of personality quiz in that section which, upon completion one received advice on, based on one's personality and aspirations, one chose one's hat. It was a bit of a sliding scale ranging from the trilby or fedora for the serious and business-like young man (for some reason the trilby was considered more serious than the fedora despite the fact that it is really a bit of a silly hat) to the pork-pie for the joker and happy-go-lucky type to the beret for the misfit. The summer hats followed the same line as the winter hats (panama fedoras and pork-pies) except for the beret which seemed to be a cap that one was to suffer with in the hottest days. The one hat, during the summer, that any type of personality that was considered good for any man, young or old, was the boater. And by the time the book was published the boater hat was pretty out of date in America. In fact, by the time the book was written hats, except for warmth in cold weather, were pretty much out of fashion. But the book made such an impression on your faithful correspondent as a callow youth that he has remembered and pretty much lived according to the teachings of the book.
So summer is here in spades and it's time to consider putting on your summer hat. One can't go wrong with a boater, whether an expensive Italian boater or a cheap Chinese boater. The boater always looks sharp, is cool and keeps one's mug out of the sun. And it doesn't make one look like one is a professional lawn mower.
Here's a history of the boater hat. This writer questions some of the facts in the article, but the writer of the article has a university education while yours truly only graduated high school, so he may have more facts than yours. At the end of the article is a photograph of the author wearing a really cheap boater and looking much more like Ted Cruz than he would probably like.
Loved and Loathed: The Straw Boater Hat, a history | Tragicocomedia
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