My family mocks my “Old Movies: The Hat Factor Theory.” Can you believe it? Comments please.
I am a baby boomer from the middle of the pack. I do not like many old movies. My parents, older brothers and my wife and older people seem to like old movies that are set in the 1900’s-1940’s. I used to say that most of these movies have no relevance to me. What my family and I gradually noticed was a strong correlation between how many hats were worn in a movie and how much I liked a movie. The more hats, the less that I like the movie. Ladies in fine millinary hats, ladies in hats that are an exact match to a dress or coat, men in cowboy hats, dress hats, army combat helmets and gas station attendent hats, are all great indicators of my dislike of a movie. I’ve seen mob scenes where everyone wore a hat and their sunday best. What kind of people cause mayhem in suits and ties? (I know, Republicans)
My family has quizzed me with clips of movies. I am quite accurate in telling the difference between an old movie and a new movie by how the hats are worn. People in the old movies could put a hat squarely on their head perfectly, including hat pin, without a mirror, and leave the hat alone. Modern day actors fuss with the hat, need a mirror to check their appearance, and can’t leave the hat alone. They’re always changing the slant. There is one exception to this theory, modern men can wear a baseball cap without a second thought.
Three hats and it’s out. That’s my rule of thumb. Grapes of Wrath is one exception. They wore a lot of hats in that movie but those wear dusty, dirty hats, not fancy hats.
A movie where womens’ hats match their dress or coat is probably a musical–I loathe musicals (West Side Story included). I love old movies. The hats worn in old westerns are usually silly and, you’re right, far too clean, but even in modern westerns they show men wearing the standard “cowboy hat.” Any study of old photos of the late 1800s will show you that all men wore hats but very few wore anything that resembled the standard western movie cowboy hat. I’ve never let that stand in the way of my love of old movies–particularly westerns!
Fedoras are great, too…actually men in the 40s probably starting wearing those because of the movies rather than the movies reflecting real life. Nevertheless, they look great. My grandfather wore them. I still remember visiting a home in Carmel, California, in the early 70s and seeing an older gentleman arrive home from work in raincoat and fedora, take them both off, hand them to his wife and give her kiss on the cheek. Took me right back to my grandfather–and Ozzie and Harriet.
Men might want to reconsider the hat thing (baseball caps are so laid back). I went to a pro tennis match in southern California once in the mid-70s. A man in his late 20s-early 30s walked into the stands in a light brown suit and matching fedora. I couldn’t take my eyes off him–and neither could every other woman in the place. He looked GOOD and I couldn’t even see his face.
My dad used to wear a grey fedora and a brown leather pea jacket with suede front to work. It was a very handsome combination. I remember we all loved to try his hat on.
It’s too bad they are so out of fashion, now. I look very good in a fedora.
My dad absolutely, positively, NEVER wore a hat. Except when he was in the Navy. Didn’t matter how cold, or how much sun he was working in, he NEVER wore a hat.
My older son has worn some type of baseball hat (correctly, not these huge things sideways that seem to be the rage today) since he was about 2 years old. Still does to this day (except when he’s in his Navy uniform).
There are some men that look really GOOD in “cowboy” hats. There are some that look good in hats, period. There are others that shouldn’t wear them at all.
For women - totally different. I usually wear a hood or wrap a scarf around my head, because otherwise I’ll have a bad case of “hat hair” for the whole day. I did have a decent cowboy hat - the oldest kid stole it in high school and never gave it back. I will wear a baseball hat, and pull my hair up and through the hole in the back of it.
Hats and motorcycles don’t mix well, but when I take the car I like wearing my flatcap. I also have a black Aussie-style hat that I like a lot.
I don’t give a rat’s tail about what’s in fashion; I wear what I want.
I wear vintage hats nearly every day… with at least a sports coat often more.
I favor Fedoras and Trilby.
My current favorites are a chocolate brushed beaver fur Trilby with a stingy brim and a tobacco smooth felt fedora with a wide grosgrain band, trolly and a mid size brim.
The latter does look a bit like a “indy” hat but think more Bogart than Ford.
I’m off to go shopping. I’ll be grabbing my hat off the hat rack on the way out.
I have worn an Akubra Bushman in Nullarbor tan during the winter with a flat braided kangaroo leather band for over 34 years, it’s holding up very well.
for the dress, you’ll just have to find the pattern and start pumpin’ that ol’ treadle Singer machine.
Oh, and back to the subject at hand- My granddaddy always wore a fedora, even working out in the field on the farm. My dad usually wore a flat hat.
I love hats, on men or women(although I’m not a fan of cowboy hats-I think it’s the attitude that often goes along with them that throws me off-you know, the big belt buckle, the cowboy boots, the swagger…)
I am a hat person. If I’m going outside, I wear a hat. It’s a great disappointment to me that I seem to have lost my little greeen (bleached almost white) forage cap that I could stuff in a pocket. I have a laplander multicoloured cap with a tassel (actully it may be from Northern China) which I don’t wear because it has nothing to keep the sun out of my eyes. These days it’s mostly flat caps although I do have a fedora, which is black felt and needs a lot of brushing. I also have a Polish Sheepskin (fur) hat which makes me look like a frummer (what with the beard).
So when I see period dramas where the characters are bare-headed, it makes me twitchy. In the Tate Gallery there is a wonderful picture of two eighteenth century children giving alms to a ditto destitute, and the caption for the painting says “Take this, child without a hat!” - An explanation tells that the children were so used to seeing people with hats that they thought the child had reached his destitute condition because he didn’t have a hat.
This is a Post WW2 fashion, associated with motor cars (automobiles). It’s ridiculous to wear a hat of any style inside a car, and we had a thread a few years back showing a correlation between hat-wearing drivers and appalling driving habits. So, our normal method of transport precludes the hat. This has worked its way into films, naturally enough, but also into period films.
The BBC has gradually taken to noticing this. In some of the Jane Austen adaptations, the characters walk in the grounds of the estate bare-headed - and even the famous scene where Marianne Dashwood is caught in a rainstorm she’s bareheaded! Outrageous!
Naturally you want to see the actors faces. But the movie-style view of history carries its own distortion. I love the notion of the mob rioting in their Sunday Best - but that’s the thing about riots - the bulk of people who get caught up in them didn’t plan for it. Take it from me - I’ve been in one or two. The other side of the coin is the Mediaeval Costume, where everybody but the king, and sometimes the king too, wears sackcloth (hessian). No! Some of the actual mediaeval fabrics were hand-sewn by people with time on their hands and were much more rich than we could achieve today - but they could be faked for the camera. Sumptuary laws were in effect, yes, but that meant anybody with any ambition would be wearing the very best that they owned. Hessian? Pah!
I have a forage cap, a caboosh, an afghan cap, a taqiyah, a guthra, a kefiyeh, a fedora, a panama, a duncher (a flat cap) - three dunchers, in fact,tweed, houndstooth and dark blue wool, an ushanka, a multicoloured tasselled cap which is either Sami or Mongolian, a sheepskin cap (very frum), and a fox-skin cap, complete with brush. My son has a black trilby, which suits him very well. My daughter has a faux leopard-skin trilby, a woollen ushanka she stole from her mother, and a faux-fur Cossack hat. And both of us can fold at least three competent hats out of a sheet of newspaper, should the need arise.
With a hat there is something to doff to acknowledge the ladies. With a hat you can show respect at a funeral without uttering a word. With a hat, there is something to hold when you address a crowd. With a hat you can be jaunty, insouciant, or single-minded and determined, without doing more than adjusting the angle. With a good hat there is no need to shade your eyes from the sun, or to hold a newspaper over your head from the rain. With a hat you stay a good deal warmer in cold weather.
Without a hat, a man is a bare-headed gomeril, a mere undressed loon. So there.
