The fedora is often associated with gangsters, prohibition-era detectives, film-noir antiheros, and more recently, fashionable celebrities. It takes its name from the title of a play by Victorien Sardou. Interestingly, the hat was actually popularised by and for women, but just before 1920, middle-class men adopted it too. Its popularity soared, and within a few years it eclipsed the similar-looking Homburg. Initially, the wearer could crease a wide-brimmed hat through inclination but by the 1950s a variety of types were standardised. Interestingly, the short-brimmed fedora (or Trilby) has become most popular since the turn of the new millennium.
Top Hat
Though nowadays it’s only proper to wear a top hat with morning dress or white tie, there was a time when just about everyone used to wear a top hat. It first made its appearance among the upper classes in the 18th century, though at that time it was made of beaver fur from the new world. The fur was later replaced by silk, and eventually, even servants started wearing them, though that only aided their decline among their betters. Still, the top hat gives you what in Latin is called gravitas. It smoulders. You won’t get many chances to wear one, but there are nevertheless some suitable formal events, especially weddings and the races at Ascot.
Baseball Cap
The baseball cap could not be more unlike the aristocratic top hat. Worn by generals, pop stars and many actual baseball fans, this hat wants to say: “I’m one of you”. It originated in the 1860s in support of the Brooklyn Excelsiors though, over time, it lost its floppiness and gained a uniform, a hard edge known as the 59fifty, after the hat brand that has the official rights for Major League Baseball. Of course most caps now have very little to do with baseball but they should still have some conversation-catalysing connection to a company or brand. Don’t worry, irony is allowed as long as the casque is as weathered, friendly and worn as an old teddy bear.
Bowler
The bowler hat was originally called the coke hat due to the fact it was an 1849 bespoke creation for the aristocratic English politician Edward Coke. His brief had been for a close-fitting, truncated hat to protect his gamekeepers’ heads from low-hanging branches while on horseback. The result was so sturdy that it became a firm favourite of the working classes, a craze that spread to America where workers, cowboys, lawmen and gunslingers delighted in the fact the hat remained stuck on one’s head even in extreme situations. Conversely, that Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, as well as Lou Costello all made the bowler part of their looks is probably what has prevented a fashion comeback.
The Beret
Though the beret may be solidly linked to the Parisian intellectual, filmmaker or artiste - a worldwide symbol of mental savoir-faire – it wasn’t always this way. Deriving from the Basque shepherd hat of the 17th century, it was first mass-produced in 19th century France and Spain, countries with which it remains associated. Its practicality has long made it an item of military clothing – most famously of all Che Guevara made it ‘revolutionary chic’. Even Rastafarians wear the beret, considering it and dreadlocks to be symbols of the biblical covenant of God with his chosen people, the black Israelites. Whatever the case, berets remain an open-ended, unisex and versatile accessory.
