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How did you start wearing hats?

RBH

Bartender
djhatman said:
Seams like a good place for my first post. I got my first hat a few years ago while in Denver visiting my sister. It was one of the cheap Target kinds that are very poplar now. ( I didn't know any better) After having that for awhile I had J.W. of J.W. Hats here in Salt Lake make my first fedora and have had him make a few more since.
Welcome to the Lounge!:eusa_clap
 

bbradd1

New in Town
Messages
5
Location
Stuttgart Germany/ Military
Why?? Why not!!!

I just started wearing glasses, and being stationed in Germany, it sprinkles often. I HATE water droplets on my glasses. On the really cruddy days I wear a cheapo Scala, but on the good days I wear a good hat. I also like the shade they provide. My wife thinks I look pretty good underneath a hat as well! ;) Brad
 

Bigbrasshat

New in Town
Messages
2
Location
Florida flatlands
My father, born in 1909, wore a hat most all his life. I have pictures of him and his father both wearing Homburgs. I bought my first "real" hat in the late 70's. I was in N.Y. City and purchased a long dark topcoat. My brother suggested that I need a hat to go with it so we marched around 5th Ave.,found a hat shop and I purchased a grey Stetson. A couple years later a good friend of mine,who never wore a hat for any reason had to have a painful series of skin surgeries on the top of his head and this renewed my interest in always wearing a hat. Lastly, my father always said" a hat isn't a hat unless it has a brim on it". Sadly he passed away before the current craze of wearing a ball cap backwards began.
 

glittlewing

New in Town
Messages
12
Location
Madison Capital of WI
A Time Long Ago

Now to let you know my avatar pic that me in 1967 taken Easter time in my home town of Delavan WI saw the thread of how did you start to wear hats? After my Dad past this spring Mom told me as I found that pic of me with the hat on she said I had to be like my Dad had to have my hat on all the time like my father. Dad would get a new hat I had to have one I remember Dad had his blue gray Stratoliner and My Grand Father had his light gray Stratoliner not sure where any of them went to after the years. My Grand Father wear hats all of the time as far as I can remember after all he had become balded at the age of sixteen what better way to keep from sun burning the top of his head. My Grand Father had quit a few hats I recall many of them names I see listed as vintage (wish I had some of them today) My Dad was a plumber growing up I remember him always in a straw hats in the summer time and Scottish Tams in the winter time but in the early 70s it became unpopular to wear hats for my generation so I stopped. After my Dad passed away this spring something inside of me a spark went off and I want to find older style hats to wear again got a Beaver Brand Hat couple of months ago and started looking on line for vintage hats and in the buy sell shops around here, got about eight different hats now still trying to get a Stratoliner in memory of my Grandfather and my Dad hard to get one thou, someday maybe. Thanks all for everyone knowledge pics and sharing the past is never dead it just gets passed on. Gregory Littleiwng M. Smith
 

jwalls

Vendor
Messages
741
Location
Las Vegas
Long ago and far away.

My great grandfather, whom I was lucky to know into my 20's, always worn a forora when outdoors. His son my grand dad would not let me go out to work on the farm with out a hat, usually one of his hand-me downs. So I suppose I don't remember not wearing a hat. Grand dad loaned me the money for the first one I purchased for myself when I was 17. It was a derby, so I took some kidding about it, but I did love that hat. Next time I am at my mother's home I'll look fo it. I hope it's still in the old home place somewhere.:) :)
 

frussell

One Too Many
Messages
1,409
Location
California Desert
Runs in the family

I called my grandfather on my mother's side, who is in my avatar, and most recently in the ancestor hat pics thread, "Hat" for the first twenty years of my life, because I couldn't pronounce whatever they wanted me to call him, and he always wore a Stetson cowboy hat. He bought me my first cowboy hat when I was about two and half or so. My paternal grandfather had an old Whippet or one of the other fine older Stetson fedoras in his closet, as he had stopped wearing them very often, and from the time I was a year old, I liked to wear it when I spent time at their house. I've basically had cowboy hats or fedoras or stingy brims of some kind for the last 44 years in my possession. Too bad none of my ancestors wore the same size as me, or I'd have some real treasures in my collection. Frank
 

texashatman

Familiar Face
Messages
76
Location
South Texas
Like a lot of folks I grew up wearing a cowboy hat just about from birth. I got away from the family ranches and stopped wearing one as I got older. A few years later my mother bought me a nice silverbelly Resistol so I started wearing it to special family functions but since I wasn't messing with horses any more and don't own any cattle I just didn't feel comfortable wearing one all the time. I always admired the look of a nice fedora so I finally bought one a while back and I love it. I've bought a few more since and I wear them all the time. It's funny how people react to a nice hat. Women especially seem to really like it and often say how they wish more men were wearing hats.
 

Mr. Paladin

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,133
Location
North Texas
Welcome to all you new guys here. Glad to have you add to the input and knowledge of the group. You will like the atmosphere here I know.
 

Maurice Overby

New in Town
Messages
2
Location
Rhine Valley
Birth of an addict

My first hat ever has just arrived yesterday.
It's a beautiful (in my eyes) Mayser Homburg in shades of dark and light brown.
It isn't vintage, but fresh from the rack, if one may say so.
I'm not especially drawn to vintage clothes, just to things I like to wear.
So, when I'd bought me a new camel overcoat earlier this fall, I knew - there had to be a hat to it.
A Homburg, that is. Don't know why I decided for one, but examining the endless alternatives made it perfectly clear:
A Homburg it had to be.

Photos have yet to be made...

I never wore hats for more than fifty years.
A bobble cap during winter, sure, or a silly straw hat on vacation.
But a hat?
OK, there had been this old trilby, I'd inherited from my granddad,
which I wore to pieces during my time as a student, just for fun and to kidd the friends.
But seriously wearing a hat?
Never.
Becoming balder, I've enjoyed wearing one and the same basecap on occasion
for more than ten years. A kind business partner
had given it to me years ago, when I had visited him in PA/USA and it was something of a souvenir.
But a hat?
When the basecap finally broke, I had to go for somet replacement to cover my central bareness and
decided for some Donegal caps, which I really do like a lot. But, again, a hat?
Then this lounge found me by chance - as it often happens with the web - and I was drawn into it.
Upon reading someones remarks about becoming hooked after joining the lounge,
only some days or so after I'd found the lounge, I thought:
silly you, that will surely not happen to me; what do I need hats for?
I don't even go out of the house and to town very often, so what for?
Then, after some weeks, and I can hardly describe why,
I began to search for something completely different, for a really new experience:
a serious hat.
And now, that I have found this lounge's invaluable knowledge and experience,
and after examining tens and tens of internet hat-shops and
hundreds of hats of different styles and colours,
I've become proud possessor of one new and two vintage hats.
One Mayser Homburg and two of Johnnyphi's vintage Adams.(yet to come)
That's three for starters.
Seems to be the way of the lounge...

Otherguy
 

jwalls

Vendor
Messages
741
Location
Las Vegas
Mr. Paladin said:
Welcome to all you new guys here. Glad to have you add to the input and knowledge of the group. You will like the atmosphere here I know.
As Mr.P said "Welcome one and all".You'll have a great time here.:eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap
 

swaviator

New in Town
Messages
43
Location
Oklahoma City
silverHalo said:
I thought it uncooth to drink a 15 year single malt without one, So 500 bottles and 23 Fedoras later, here I am! (I'm sure Tom Waits has a little sway on me about wearing a hat though.) Cheers!

I wish that I could, but I cannot agree more!!
 

Mickey D

One of the Regulars
Messages
105
Location
Northern California
I never wore any type of hat for my first 45 years. I then started to wear a straw type hat while doing yard work, sitting around car shows, golfing and while hiking and hanging around the campfire.

I have always enjoyed the Golden Era, and used that influence when decorating my home after divorce. I love Art Deco and Streamline.

So... I decided to try the daily hat wearing routine this past year starting in April '09. Bought a few Baileys to get used to hats and to be certain I liked the style on me before taking the plunge into more expensive fur.
I ordered two Stetsons this weekend and am excited to wear some quality lids. I guess I'm hooked!
 

JimWagner

Practically Family
Messages
946
Location
Durham, NC
I've worn hats of one kind or another most of my 62 years. But I have to admit that the first fedora I ever bought was after Raiders of the Lost Ark came out. Followed shortly by purchasing an Open Road.

Between going bald on top 25 years ago and a couple of skin cancer removals over the years I never go outside without a hat any more. And the hat collection continues to grow.
 

daizawaguy

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,661
Location
Tokyo
Ordered an Akubra around 2002...took off with caps around 2005, then back to Akubra (Style master, Fed) in 2006, remebered I had seen a site about Fed bashing years ago (Lounge?), bumped into the Lounge again, and the rest is history. 20+ hats and counting...
 

steveforse

New in Town
Messages
20
Location
Riverside, CA
How I Started

I started wearing dress shirts in high school and though they'd look snazzy with coats. Then that coats would look snazzy with vests. Then that three-pieces would look snazzy with a fedora. It was all down hill from there. Now I have trouble storing them where I'll find them. I'm not picky: I've got homburgs, fedoras, boaters, bowlers, top hats, and etc.
 

hhanna

New in Town
Messages
7
Location
Coolidge, Az.
I was raised on the farm in the desert of Arizona so we needed shade. Straw hats because they were cooler and they got really dirty. In high school started wearing felt cowboy hats for dress up.
About 20 years ago I found a hat in Montana at a fly shop I really liked. Somebody in camp told me it was a fedora not a cowboy hat. Found this place while trying to find a replacement. Now I have a fed iv and a camp draft.
My dad always wore a felt fedora on the farm summer or winter.
HH
 

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