Men don't wear hats any more.
Actually, that's not true. They just don't wear nice hats. Lots of men wear baseball caps, which are to fedoras what overalls are to three-piece suits. I would not be caught dead in a baseball cap, especially one of those stupid "Von Dutch" ones that were so recently popular. You'd put it on my corpse and my hands, suddenly zombified by the power of hate, would rip out your throat. And shove the "Von Dutch" hat down your lungs. I wouldn't try to eat your brains because it would be obvious you didn't have any.
Farmers get to wear baseball caps because they need them. Just like they need overalls. Baseball players get to wear baseball caps. Neither of these groups looks foolish in a baseball cap. They look appropriate. Everyone else wearing a baseball cap is doing it just to look like a hayseed, and succeeding. If the sun is bright, wear sunglasses. Faux rube just isn't becoming.
In fact, in the spirit of the modern conservative nanny state, I propose that anyone caught wearing a baseball cap unnecessarily should be forced to wear overalls alone, for a period of no less than a month. Especially if they are attending a wedding, or a funeral.
But I digress. Once upon a time men wore hats. Pretty much all the time, at least out of doors. There were bowlers and stovepipes, caps and boaters, fedoras and Panamas. The fact that you can picture all of those, yet have probably never worn any of them for more than an hour or two and just for fun, illustrates how pervasive hats once were in the culture. And yet we just don't see them any more.
Oh sure, in Texas you'll see Stetsons, but that's regional jingoism. "I'm from Texas," it says. "Look at me!"
I'm not sure if I miss hats or not. I look pretty darn good in a fedora, but of course it's also one more thing to wear. I leave off socks whenever I can get away with it (which means, when I'm wearing my Birkenstocks), so I'm not sure that being expected to wear a hat would be a plus. Still, were I in a position where I had to wear a suit and tie anyway, it would be nice to be able to wear a nice fedora and not look like I stepped out of an RKO picture.
Other fashions have gone by the wayside and good riddance to them. String ties. Bow ties. A few "personalities" wear bow ties, but what those bow ties say is "my asshole is so clenched my shit looks like brown toothpaste". Next thing you know these ponces will be wearing ascots.
Ascots. There's one that can stay in its grave. Along with unfolded collars.
You know, collars are interesting. I think all men know that collars, especially with a tie, are not comfortable. Yet the collars we wear these days, folded down over a tie, are much more comfortable than their upright-with-an-ascot predecessors. And those in turn were more comfortable than the Puritan-era neck ruffs, and those were more comfortable than those ridiculous neck frisbees that they wore in Elizabethan times.
So things are moving in the right direction, I guess. Still, I sort of miss nice hats.
- Sun Ra
P.S. Hey, it was this or more firebreathing political ranting.