The BBC doesn’t know what makes a man wear a hat
Posted By Steven Lewis on June 3, 2009
The BBC has published an article on hat wearing as flimsy as the hook on which they’ve hung it: the celebrity hat wearer of the year announcement. The article raises the familiar question of why men stopped wearing hats in the 1960s; and asks whether hat wearing today is “merely an affectation”. Meaningful answers, however, come there none.
Christine Smith, manager of the Hat Works museum in Stockport, Greater Manchester, is quoted putting the decline in hat wearing down to cars.
“Before cars became common they were a useful item of clothing to keep the weather off,” she says.
But that doesn’t make sense. Has umbrella usage declined, too? Even those of us with cars have to get out of them to brave the elements.
Peter Howarth, the editor of the Sunday Telegraph’s men’s fashion magazine, is quoted attributing the decline in hat wearing to the rise of casual clothing:
“Nowadays the expectation we have is that the things we wear will be comfortable. The formal hat fell victim to that general trend.”
Part of me is with Howarth here: I don’t wear anything uncomfortable. But none of my hats is uncomfortable.
Running out of people to quote, the BBC journalist, Stephen Dowling, puts in his own grand statement about hat wearing and formality:
“Hat-wearing for men is often linked to formal behaviour – the tipping of a hat when a lady walks past, the removal of a hat on entry to church, the holding of a hat to the heart during the national anthem, and the throwing aloft at the end of hostilities.”
This is about as insightful and misleading as observing that our hands are “often linked to formal behaviour”, such as hand shakes, salutes, waving and so on.
I quibble, however: the question of why men stopped wearing hats isn’t really of any interest, unless we could reverse the decline if we knew why people stopped wearing hats.
But some good news…
On that note, what is interesting in the piece is the nugget from Tim Boucher, proprietor of hat outfitter Bates in London’s Jermyn Street, that he’s seen a 30 per cent increase in sales in the last four years.
However, the readers’ comments are the best part of this weak story, such as the one from Anne Anderson, owner of The Beverley Hat Company in East Yorkshire. She says the word at the trade shows is that hats will be big in the winter of ‘09; and makes the observation that bowlers are for clubbing and trilbies for festivals.
They would say that, wouldn’t they, but let’s hope it’s true 
About the author
My biggest problem with that BBC article, since I first saw it, was that it was so simple. It is not just young men that are bringing them back in fashion. Living in Oxford, UK, I see men of all ages wearing hats and I happily walk out wearing a hat everyday. During Summer Eights, men with hats came close to be a majority and this last weekend, men in hats were out in force at our annual community street fair.
Btw, I have been starting to write a few posts on my blog recently.
I was back in Oxford in April for a visit, wearing a hat of course. I wish when I was up (Christ Church (1989)) I’d taken the opportunity to wear a hat then If ever there was a time to experiment with self-expression it would have been then. As it was, I was telling my son and family, I was considered eccentric for wearing a bike helmet. I note that nothing much has changed with regard to that piece of headwear. It seemed very few people were wearing them still.
The question of why men abandoned hats in the 1960’s is a very significant sartorial puzzle in the history of men’s dress.
As an Australian headwear specialist on a recent study tour of the world looking at men’s headwear design, I paid homage to a great hat wearer, Winston Churchill at the Churchill Museum in London.
The video loop of his state funeral, (which I watched with fascination 3 times over ) held the answer to the question of the disappearing hat.
All the performers in this sad moment were fully clad-top to toe in formal dress ,slowly marching Churchill to his grave.
However the crowd were all hatless,having moved on from such formal attire.
After the legacy of years at war where rank and obedience were defined by uniform dress, the dropping of the hat symbolised a shift in socal conciousness.The cultural revolution not only freed peoples minds but also their heads.
That’s a much better answer to the question than it was to do with the motorcar and the elements!
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