
Cars and hygiene killed the middle-class hat - jameslk
https://medium.com/s/pulling-at-threads/how-cars-and-hygiene-killed-the-middle-class-hat-2f382b4a35ec
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WalterBright
I've been wearing a hat outdoors for about 10 years now, since the doc carved
pieces of flesh out of my forehead. It was annoying at first, but I grew to
like it. It keeps the sunburn away. I was surprised how pleasant it made
walking in the rain.

It doesn't affect my hairstyle because my hair departed long ago.

I do get ridiculed for it now and then, but one advantage of getting older is
one stops caring about that, and if pressed I'll just tell 'em they'll change
their mind after going under the knife.

~~~
analog31
I find that putting on a big floppy hat is quicker and easier than applying
sunscreen to my face. So I wear one during the summer when I'm outside. I keep
an additional one at work for summertime lunch. The only obstacle is, when I'm
outside, I'm often wearing a bike helmet.

~~~
WalterBright
> quicker and easier than applying sunscreen to my face.

Yup. It's not greasy, don't have to worry about missing a spot, don't have to
wait the 20 minutes before it becomes effective, don't have to reapply it
after a few hours, it doesn't expire, it doesn't smell like rotten coconuts,
and it's very, very effective.

~~~
SiVal
Wait, Walter, what is this "wait 20 mins before it becomes effective"? Did I
miss something? Aren't the standard ingredients simply opaque to UV
frequencies right out of the bottle/tube?

~~~
caw
The standard Coppertone sunscreen says

Directions: Apply liberally 15 minutes before sun exposure. Reapply: after 80
minutes of swimming or sweating; immediately after towel drying; at least
every 2 hours

I’ve always heard this as time to absorb to become waterproof, but I’m not
sure if it’s actual skin absorption or the liquid used to convey the sun
blocking compounds to dry or evaporate. Either way, apply and then wait.

~~~
buran77
When you film it in UV, sunscreen appears completely black from the first drop
out of the bottle, meaning it absorbed all UV. The 15 minutes might be for
applying or getting absorbed before there's a chance to get wiped off.

This is a good video to highlight this [0], the sunscreen part is in the
second half. Probably many more like it.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9BqrSAHbTc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9BqrSAHbTc)

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scarygliders
My wife is Japanese.

She trained as a Milliner, and has been desinging and making hats for decades.

She's a damn great milliner. She won 1st prize in The Worshipful Company of
Feltmakers of London competition, in the 90's.

She worked for Philip Treacy.

She's been in numerous magazine and newspaper articles.

There is only one problem: no one buys hats these days :/

~~~
tristor
I have about 30 hats, I don't wear a hat every day because I am usually not
leaving the house, but when I leave the house I typically wear a hat. That's
just how I grew up in the rural Midwest. I know it's dying out and I've had
people make comments that I am old man in a young man's body, but nonetheless
it's a habit I have. I'm always on the lookout for good hats so if you'd like
to share a link to her work I may be interested to buy. Right now I mostly buy
hats from Goorin Brothers.

~~~
leetrout
GB quality and selection of nice baseball caps is shot. I never bought the
other styles but the last two times I’ve dropped in it has felt like being in
Lids / ToW.

~~~
masklinn
Baseball caps offer limited protection for the head as a whole, especially the
ears, though. To say nothing of trucker caps and their mesh crown, which fail
to even protect most of the head.

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vondur
As George Costanza said "What a bald paradise that must have been. Nobody
knew" referring to the 20's and 30's when everyone wore hats.

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canada_dry
> dried up in just a few generations

I think a decade from now they'll be analyzing the even more rapid demise of
suits and briefcases.

I remember when 'casual dress Fridays' started. A leading men's shop took out
full page ads in the newspaper extolling the virtue of _looking professional
vs. casual_. They've since gone bankrupt.

~~~
rsynnott
Hmm, I would have said the briefcase was essentially already dead. When's the
last time you actually saw someone carrying one?

~~~
retrac
Before everyone stopped taking the subway here, it was quite common for
business commuters to be carrying a briefcase. Though some sort of
casual/dressy tote bag is just as common these days.

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bencollier49
I think the key to the whole thing might be buried towards the end of the
article: "Students began to go _without_ hats as a sign of status".

Is it not likely that as car-owners began to shirk hats - and presumably they
would have been more affluent - hats were increasingly worn predominantly by
poorer people? Not unlike a tan was originally considered unfashionable as it
meant you had been working in the sun?

I bet you could find other examples that confirmed that this was a fashion
driven by lifestyle changes amongst the upper-middle class.

~~~
pantaloony
Having a tan in colder latitudes _in the Winter /Spring_ was fashionable
because it meant you'd "Wintered" or at least had a long Winter vacation
somewhere sunny, which means you could afford (having the time, freedom, and
money) to "Winter" at all. Tanning beds killed that, of course.

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toomanybeersies
I've come to really appreciate good hats, especially good bush hats (think
Crocodile Dundee type cowboy hat) when I'm in the bush.

They don't just keep the sun out of your eyes. They keep your head warm when
it's cold outside and cool when it's sunny. They keep your head dry when it's
wet, but don't end up drenched in sweat.

~~~
robgibbons
They also make boonie hats with retractable bug netting. You can forget it's
there until you really need it. After a really buggy May/June trip I never go
camping without mine.

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fortran77
As a Jewish man, I come from a long-line of hat-wearers. And I get a lot of
complements from people on my hats when I'm out and about. Men are curious
about them, as if the want to wear them, but fear looking silly.

~~~
mirimir
Some of the orthodox hats are just _so_ cool. Black. Rakish. Almost
streamlined.

~~~
fortran77
Wear one! It's ok!

~~~
mirimir
Huh, the Borsalino. But damn, those are expensive hats!

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nerfhammer
My half-baked theory has been that nobody wears hats on TV because you
wouldn't be able to see their faces as well, and people started imitating
that.

~~~
rags2riches
Game of Thrones was irritating me in every other scene with the complete lack
of headgear. It stuck out so badly in that setting.

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forgotmypw17
I spend a lot of time in unfamiliar environments as I travel, and now and
then, this results in banging my head against something, followed by, "I can't
believe I did that _again_ , I've got to be more careful."

Recently, when it was cold, while I was wearing a couple of hats and a couple
of hoods, I happened to bang my head into an object above me, something which
happens to me infrequently, but regularly.

Because of all the padding, I felt the impact, but it did not hurt me nearly
as much as it normally would have.

Since then, I've been wearing one or two thick hats most of the time, and this
habit has already saved me from that very unpleasant experience of hitting my
head on a sharp corner.

People ask me if I'm warm, but I barely notice it. I think that, as also with
sleeping in a thick blanket, my body adjusts and just produces less heat.

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rm445
A question on a related topic, then: given that hats are dead, how can a
person appear reasonably good if they want to wear a hat for comfort/practical
reasons?

Clearly one of the big no-nos is mixing formal and casual. Fedora wearers
without a suit, also the weird college-student fad of wearing a waistcoat
("vest") with casual clothing, much ridiculed. But on the other hand, wooly
hats and baseball caps are _more_ casual than a lot of general leisure and
business clothing. We have the flat cap, but here in England that seems like
an affectation unless you're from particular places where it's traditional.
What alternatives are there?

~~~
domrally
Alongside casual vs formal I think we see workwear and sportswear consistently
evolve into fashionwear. I see the baseball cap as an example of that.
Baseball caps were originally worn by players. I think the bucket hat is
another example, traditionally worn by fishers and farmers. Both of these hats
came in around 150 years ago.

Knit or woolly caps on the other hand have been used for over 1000 years. I
think it's safe to think the knit hat will be around for many more generations

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Semaphor
I have 3 hats: A seaweed one for summer (very light, protection from the sun),
a felt one (warmth and some rain protection) and a faux-leather stetson
(sun/rain and very sturdy, so I tend to take it on flights and for festivals).
Mainly utilitarian, but I also like how they look. And I find caps hideous.

While there aren’t many people with hats, there are some (most, but not all,
older than me; I’m 34). Never gotten a weird look or comment regarding my
hats. We have a dedicated hat-store (split, one for women and one for men) 2
streets over and usually when I walk past there is at least one customer.

~~~
0xffff2
Could you link to an example of a seaweed hat? I've never heard the term and
Google is giving me very mixed results.

~~~
nerdponx
Look up a "seagrass" hat instead.

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totetsu
Some places still wear hats.
[https://vitamindwiki.com/%22No+hat,+no+play%22+in+Australia+...](https://vitamindwiki.com/%22No+hat,+no+play%22+in+Australia+primary+schools)
[https://blog.coolibar.com/school-hat-
contest/](https://blog.coolibar.com/school-hat-contest/)

------
jacobsenscott
Sometimes I wear a cowboy hat for fun, but they are terrible in any condition.
Outside they blow away because of the wide brim. If you forget to take it off
before getting in a car it will either catch on the door frame, or the
headrest will knock it off your head. If you wear it inside the brim will
knock into something and make you look like a doof.

~~~
harperlee
Common etiquette says that you dont wear hats indoors unless you are in
service or a woman, I heard somewhere.

~~~
kwhitefoot
> in service

Interesting; in British English _in service_ applied to a human being means
_in domestic service_ , like the servants in Downton Abbey; applied to
inanimate objects it means that they are functioning or that a bus, for
instance, is ready to take passengers.

This isn't meant to say that your way of saying it is wrong by the way.

~~~
0xffff2
I'm pretty sure that's the meaning GP was going for. The only other meaning I
can think of would be "serving in the military", which (in the US at least)
would be "in _the_ service" and anyway members of the military also remove
their hats indoors except in certain specific circumstances.

~~~
harperlee
I meant arms service; in military/police duty. Probably mistranslation from
spanish “de servicio”!

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mathw
If I could get a nice wide-brimmed sunhat that didn't blow off in the
slightest breeze I'd be a happy man indeed.

~~~
ben7799
You want a Tilley Hat... prized by boaters for not falling off in even the
stiffest of winds, keeps your head/shoulders from burning in the sun, floats,
and nearly invincible.

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ben7799
They don't mention that so few people have served in the military these days.

Wearing hats could have easily been more popular because so many more men were
veterans back in the days after WWI and WWII. They would have been used to
wearing hats after being in the service. The time hats started dropping off in
popularity also correlates with the rise of the anti-war movement brought on
by the Vietnam war.

Also in the 1960s the Catholic Church stopped requiring women to wear hats in
church.

~~~
retrac
Men wearing hats in the West predates the military mass mobilization and
conscription of the 20th century.

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lvturner
Frequently wear a baseball cap (that counts as a hat? Right?) on weekends
thinning hair, pale skin and a subtropical climate pretty much mandate it -
and the extra shade certainly improves the efficiency of my sunglasses!

A lot of people use umbrellas here for the same purpose, but with dense
crowds, overhead obsticles and tying up a hand... I'd rather wear some form of
hat while out and about!

~~~
WalterBright
A baseball cap works for the forehead but does nothing for the tops of the
ears. A fellow I know had the top quarter of one of his ears sliced off by the
dermatologist.

~~~
lvturner
True, but it's much easier to put sunscreen on my ears than on my head (my
hair isn't that thin yet!)

~~~
refurb
On of the benefits of shaving your head! Easy sunscreen application.

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082349872349872
Cars also produced the tuxedo/smoking, because tails were not so compatible
with bench seats.

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Supermancho
I have a huge randomly flowing mane that can only be curbed with hats (short -
a cap, or long - a soft beanie). I've worn them for more than 20 years.

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mrtnmcc
Widespread pandemic hair might be just the luck hats needed.

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brightball
I’ve often wondered about getting a more wide brimmed hat as I get older, but
I find that baseball cap does the job just fine.

~~~
WalterBright
That'll work if you let your hair cover your ears.

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haspoken
[http://archive.is/vMEeN](http://archive.is/vMEeN)

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basicplus2
People arn't wearing enough hats...

~~~
doublesCs
People aren't wearing enough hats for what purpose?

~~~
phaemon
For covering their heads, presumably.

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ngngngng
I would love to add more hats to my wardrobe. But I can't shake the thought
that a man in a hat that's not a baseball cap just looks like he's trying too
hard.

~~~
Digit-Al
People will judge you on many things, so what's one more item on the list. If
you like the hat and think it makes you look good then wear it and damn the
judgemental types.

