The bowler hat (derby) living large in the pop culture imagination
Posted By Steven Lewis on September 22, 2009
Protester wearing a bowler hat (a derby) as part of a shorthand for fat cat bankers.
I’ve been exploring a new business offering (at first) self-guided audio walking tours of Sydney (your feedback very welcome!), which has kept me from posting here. Bill’s nice comment on an earlier post and Rosie calling to see if I’m still alive have spurred me to post again, something especially easy to do as the Sydney Morning Herald ran a picture today that hits my favourite theme: hats as a shorthand for character.
The man in the picture is parodying a fat cat financier as part of a protest calling on G20 leaders to cut executive bonuses. The outfit might have worked without the bowler hat (or derby for my US readers) but with the hat we are in no doubt that this man is a banker and a successful one. All this despite bowler hats having been out of fashion for decades but so powerful is the image of the hat that it simply won’t go away. Although this man has probably never seen anyone of any profession wearing a bowler hat, it would have taken him all of a nonosecond to pick the bowler hat as his metonym.
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Cool, just got my first bowler today (I’m not a banker), but you raise an interesting point about hats and the pre-conceptions that people make based on the type of hat. Think boater, do you think barbershop quartet (america?) or butcher (UK). Think panama, is it a British colonial ex-pat? Think brown fedora, adventure seeking archeologist?
I think the only way to stop this is if hats were more prevalent.
If you haven’t got a hat everyone, go buy one, preferably from your local hatter.