Hats for Fashionable Men

May 26, 2010, By 8 comments

Hats for Fashionable Men

Dress hats for men have been considered out of fashion for decades. Some point to John F. Kennedy as the culprit who killed off the hat as an essential part of a stylish man's wardrobe. He was bareheaded at his 1960 presidential inauguration.

Others claim that hats had become unfashionable before 1960. When soldiers came home from World War II, they associated any type of hat with the helmets that they had worn in combat. Still others blame the longer hair styles of the late 1960s for the decline in popularity of the men's dress hat.

Of course, hats haven't completely gone out of style. Sports team caps are easily the most popular type of hat, but they are only barely considered a fashion statement beyond the hip-hop and frat boy crowd. And hats, of course, can come in handy for head protection in extreme hot or cold weather. For bald men, head protection can be especially important.

Although the few men who still favor donning a well-crafted hat risk ridicule, dress hats seem to be making a minor comeback due to the popular cable television series "Mad Men," an early 1960s period piece about dapper Madison Avenue advertising agency movers and shakers.

And men's fashion magazines, like GQ, still take the well-crafted dress hat very seriously. They advise male fashionistas on ways to wear a quality crafted hat and how to properly care for it. Today's hat wearer should be comfortable with fashion for fashion's sake.

A men's traditional dress hat consists of a crown, a brim and a band. The most common hat materials are felt and straw.

Classic Dress Hat Styles

The fedora is a felt hat that's creased lengthwise down the crown, and pinched in the front of the crown on both sides.

The trilby is a soft-brimmed hat with an extreme pinch in the front of the crown. It has a smaller brim than a fedora.

The homburg is similar to a fedora, except its brim is fixed in a tight upward curl.

The Panama hat is a handwoven straw hat that was originally made in Ecuador and sold in Panama.

The bowler is a hard felt hat with a low crown. It was developed as a hat to be worn on horseback, thus avoiding the hazard of being knocked off by low-hanging tree branches.

NEXT: Before You Buy a Dress Hat

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Comments (8):

Jacob M. Hat Etiquette: Take your hat off when you eat anywhere, but a sporting event. Never let your girlfriend wear your hat too long, it makes you look like a pu&&y! - 04/23/2011
Jacob M. Hat Etiquette: Take your hat off when you eat anywhere, but a sporting event. Never let your girlfriend wear your hat too long, it makes you look like a pu&&y! - 04/23/2011
Laurens M. This article ignores the most commonly worn hat outside of the baseball cap, "THE COWBOY HAT"Worn Throughout The US ,ALTHOUGH MAINLY in the south ,west and mid-west which covers most of the US.This article completely leaves out THE COWBOY HAT then when you add in the trendy western hat, mainly made of raffia,There is a great big hole in this article. - 02/28/2011
D G. I welcome anything that will discourage a grown man from wearing a baseball cap! - 01/03/2011
Dwight H. Love the fedora but sadly, in this day and age, you always look as if you're saying, "Hey, look, I'm wearing a hat." That said, I've gone to the The Custom Hatter in Buffalo, NY and had Gary make a couple - one is the same model that Hackman wore in "The French Connection." Gary made the original Indiana Jones fedora. It's a trip! - 12/19/2010
Pedro P. How can you be taken seriously when you advocate that a man wear his hat while dining in a restaurant, "even a formal one"? Tony Soprano was at his menacing best when he said to the punk who was wearing a baseball cap and was eating at a nearby table in Tony's favorite dining spot, "They don't serve hot dogs here, take off your bleeping hat!" That pretty well sums up how I feel too. Your advice should have been - when in, hat off. - 11/11/2010
Joseph H. B. As a cab-driver in NYC during the late 50s, I noticed that people who took cab rides a lot never wore a hat. The reason apparently was that unlike earlier sedan models cars of that era were too low in the doorways and back seats to allow for the entrance and exiting of a person wearing a hat. The exception of course was the checker cab which did allow for the extra bit of height needed for a person wearing a hat. It may be remembered that the actor John Wayne had a Cadillac custom made for him that allowed him to get in and out of the driver's seat wearing a Stetson. One may also notice that leading men in films, other than Westerns, usually did not wear a hat - the better for the audience to see their expressions. Still true today. J. - 11/08/2010
Gregg J. It is true that JFK was rarely photographed wearing a hat after his inauguration and it may have helped to influence men's fashion. However, photographs of JFK's inauguration show that he did wear a traditional top hat for most of the inauguration's events. He wore the hat in the motorcade from the White House to the Capitol. He took the hat off when he sat down, and left it off when he stood to gave his inaugural address. He put his hat back on to review the inaugural parade and wore the hat again that night to the inaugural balls. - 09/27/2010

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