That old black fedora had class
Roman officers in the first century wore plumed helmets into battle as protection. In the 15th century, English maidens wore hennins - cone-shaped headdresses - to beautify themselves, and in the 18th century the Frenchman wore his feathered tricorn hat for style and flair. By the 20th century, American men were wearing top hats and fedoras to give themselves a sense of distinction.
Down through the ages, hats have been worn for protection and adornment, to show rank or as a protection from the cold, heat, rain or snow. Hats also told us something about the people who wore them. But most of all, hats were once a personal trademark that gave the wearer his own identity.
For centuries people wore hats for one reason or another. In more recent decades the fashions of the 1930s dictated that every gentleman should wear a hat in public. Men stood in long bread lines and unemployment lines during those Depression years, but they wore their most stylish hats while they did so.
In the 1940s the hat became a woman's crowning glory, and by the 1950s it was a trademark for both men and women. A fashion-conscious First Lady brought the pillbox hat into vogue in the 1960s, but for the next generation, hats made from American flags had become a political statement for the young and restless macrame children of the '70s. By the 1980s and '90s, the hat was replaced by sneakers as our personal signature of the times.
When I was a kid in the 1940s, most kids were wearing cowboy hats, bonnets, beanies or baseball caps. Dad wore a felt fedora, and Mom - well, Mom would sooner leave the house naked than leave without her favorite hat. And a gentleman of the 1940s didn't feel substantially dressed without his dignified hat perched firmly atop his head.
Just about everyone was wearing hats in those days. In fact, hat-check rooms were installed at every public restaurant, nightclub and theater, with full-time clerks whose job it was to receive and disperse customers' hats all day and night.
I remember my great-grandpa Vinceni, a proud immigrant from the Old Country, and how important his black felt hat was to him. And how it always hung on a hat rack just inside the doorway of his home, always within his reach.
That old familiar hat was the first thing I saw when entering his doorway and the last thing I saw when leaving. Wherever Grandpa went, so went his hat. Every day, before leaving for work, he'd plop that well-used hat on his head, pausing a moment to freshen its crease and smooth its brim before adjusting it squarely on his head.
Despite his tattered pants, worn shirt and frayed suspenders, Grandpa almost magically assumed an air of social grace and distinction when he placed that black fedora on his head.
The war-torn 1940s sparked a romantic attraction for men in military hats. The dashing uniformed Army officer wearing his patriotic cap, with its shiny brim and golden insignia, made women swoon.
Screen stars such as Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney did their part to inspire the popularity of the hat. They were rarely seen in one of their gangster films without their trademark hats cocked smartly to one side, hats that remained on their heads through wind, fire, rain and snow. A storm couldn't blow it off, a fire couldn't burn it off and a good punch never knocked it off.
Wearing a hat in those days did a lot for a person's ego. It was commonly used to hide some of nature's little beauty flaws. A man could hide defects like a receding hairline or a pair of protruding ears under a felt hat. Women could go all day without combing their hair.
Whimsical hats worn by the colorful South American musical star Carmen Miranda had women of the 1940s wearing flamboyant and outrageous headgear that cascaded with grapes, berries and bananas. Glamorous movie queens such as Joan Crawford and Rosalind Russell inspired the trend toward veiled hats of sequins and lace, soft chiffon, fluffy feathers and glittering rhinestones.
I remember my mother's favorite hat from this era of ornamentation. It was an ostentatious little ditty sporting a huge, overwhelming pink feather that sprung out from the top of her hat and gradually cascaded all along the side of her face. Every time Mom put on that silly, wonderful hat, Dad couldn't resist a little good-natured ribbing.
"Quick, quick; get the net," he'd cry out. "That wild bird is on the loose again, and it's landed on your mother's head!" Dad and I would howl with laughter, but Mom's feathers - I should say feather - remained unruffled. She knew she was right in style with the times; after all, hadn't she just seen Betty Grable wearing a hat exactly like it in her latest film, Flying Down to Rio?
Today, it's rare to see a man or woman wearing a hat, and kids no longer wear bonnets or cowboy hats the way they did when I was young. The baseball cap can still be seen in one form or another, generally worn backward.
I haven't seen an actor wearing a hat since Carl Malden did those American Express commercials some years back; he never left home without his hat or his American Express card.
Today's trendsetting actresses like Demi Moore just eliminate hairstyle altogether by shaving their heads bald. Let's pray this fad doesn't catch on. The sad part is that she appears to be right in style with the "anything goes" current standards of fashion. I guess with modern hair-care products - wigs, dyes, styling gels, weaves and hair transplants - hats have become obsolete. There was a time, however, not too many years ago, when a lady wasn't allowed into church without a hat on her head.
Not since the Jackie Kennedy era have I seen a woman in a pillbox hat. Hats, along with other past fads, like poodle skirts, Nehru jackets, mood rings, bow ties and white buck shoes remain in fashion limbo. But I won't give up hoping that hats will return to fashion. After all, Madonna brought back bras and fishnet stockings, Michael Jackson brought back pancake makeup and eyeliner and somebody out there is responsible for the comeback of those ugly platform shoes. So why not the hat?
