Any of those readers who are not long time readers of The Bloody Nib may find themselves wondering about last Sunday's post about the fedora hat and ask themselves why would Lord Nib write about something as minor and, in fact, old fashioned, as men's hats while most of the time his writes about political and cultural issues. Hats seem so, for want of a better phrase, out of it.
But long time readers are aware that this writer and all the inhabitants of Bloody Nib Manor are conservative and value tradition. The cat still plays with balls of yarn and sniffs catnip instead of doing YouTube things such as building Lego castles or attacking coyotes.
So the question is: why hats? Specifically, why men in hats?
This writer is of the opinion that outside the house or office or church a man should wear a hat. There are three main reasons.
The first is protection. In areas where there is snow and freezing men where hats to keep their noggins warm. In very sunny climates men wear hats to keep the sun off their faces. Nowadays, in climates between the two extremes men have lot the habit of wearing a hat for some strange reason. But the fact of the matter is that in any climate a hat offers protection. A mild climate is mild for only short-lived organisms. It is not mild for humans. A 72 degree day at the beach is as oppressive to one's body as a 100 degree day in the desert. Living in a neighborhood in which many Chinese and Korean senior citizens live this writer has noticed that the Asian seniors always where hats or caps while outside and they look much younger than their Hispanic cohorts, who do not wear hats. Wearing a hat (a real hat and not a cap or a visor) offers protection against premature aging of the skin by the sun and from skin cancer from over-exposure to the sun.
The second is public self-identification. The hat one chooses, if one has chosen one's hat wisely, reflects one's personality. A homburg identifies one as a swell. A trilby identifies one as a rakish swell. A fedora identifies one as a serious man. A pork pie identifies one as a bit of a goof. A cowboy identifies one as either an adventurer, a South westerner or a poser. An eight panel cap meant that one was a working man or a golfer. A straw boater or panama hat means that it's summer. A beret means one identifies one as an outsider. Baseball caps, are to the the hat wearer, an anathema; baseball caps should be limited to baseball players or waist gunners on World War Two bombers. Navy sailors, in the past, wore either Dixie cup caps or flat caps, Marines and soldiers wore either garrison or overseas caps. Convicts wore flat, stripped skullcaps. One's dress, in a sense, identifies oneself, or as one would like to present oneself as, and since people usually look at one's mug, the hat over the mug is the first thing one sees. The important thing is that the serious hat wearer should always keep in mind that the man wears the hat or the cap. The man, while choosing the hat to reflect his personality, is not a slave to the hat. The hat doesn't wear the man. A hat doesn't make the man. An Hasidic Jew wearing a black Stetson with a Montana crown will never be a Yiddish cowboy unless he leaves Brooklyn and goes to Wyoming, mounts a horse and rounds up some cattle. And a Baptist Texan boy, despite wearing a black Bosolino fedora will never be mistaken for a member of the Tribe. Your hat should be you. Not what you want to be. What you want to be comes from within and works out; not from what's on your noggin and hoping that it works in.
Thirdly is tradition. For thousands of years men have worn hats for the above two reasons. Greek and Roman freed slaves wore liberty caps to identify themselves as free men. Slaves weren't allowed to wear hats or caps unless they were working in the fields on hot days. Hats separated one's public life from one's private life. When the Quakers, upon meeting Charles II, refused to take off their hats before him because they felt that removing one's hat was only a thing to be done at home or in church. The tricorn is identified with the American Revolution, the bicorn with the British navy during the age of sail. Up until the late 1950s a hat was a part of a man's wardrobe. This writer's grandfather wore an eight panel cap for many years, his father spent a lot of money, for him, for a fedora, as a young man. And both of these men lived for many years in southern California where many people think that hats are silliness.. But these people often come down with skin cancer on their ears or are mistaken for a boxboy at a supermarket when they are a lawyer at the supermarket.
Concerning women's hats? Who knows? Chinese and Korean women in the area near Bloody Nib Manor favor huge visors, while Japanese women prefer straw hats with large brims. Hispanic women seem not to wear hats. And white trash women seem to like baseball caps for some reason. This writer has always thought a portrait hat, whether straw or felt, very nice for any woman.
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