How did you start wearing hats?

[ebb]

As long as i can remember i have wore some sort of hat. A boy growing up in the country, always on a hunting or fishing trip it was just something i did. I always wanted a cool fedora. I always admired the hats in the old tv shows and the gangster films. I always wondered why men didnt wear hats like these anymore. I now have the full blown fedora bug and wear one on a regular basis.

 

[DesertDan]

My hat, as with the rest of my wardrobe, is simply the natural evoloution driven by practicality.

I have spent most of my adult life as a laborer in construction and other outdoor trades. From the very beginning I could see no point in wearing a baseball cap as it did not provide adequate protection from the elements. I did not adopt a cowboy style hat because I don't look good in them and as a young man I did not want to be associated with cowboy culture. So I ended up adopting the fedora. Most of mine have a teardrop or "outback" style crown but I have a few others.

Though my career has changed somewhat and I no longer strap on a tool belt or sling a shovel anymore my fedora is such a normal part of my daily attire that I would feel awkward and uncomfortable without it.

Cheers!
DD

 

[EggHead]

I started wearing hats during hiking, camping or on the beach several years ago, either inexpensive straw or cloth with wide brims. But because I was driving to work most of my life, I didn't need a hat to commute. In the last 2 years or so that I take public transportation, I noticed that sun rays would bounce off my forehead into the glasses and reflect into my eyes - wearing a brimmed hat solved that problem, also I don't like to carry an umbrella during drizzle or light rain and that prompted me to look into felt hats (I was thinking about oilcloth hats, but they were too stiff and didn't look as good). So now I find that I rarely leave my home without a hat, unless it's a door to door driving thing. I also got used to having my head feel protected by something.
For me, it's not so much a style thing (though that is not unimportant!), but rather the practicality of it.

 

[150719541]

Today ¡¡¡

Today is the best day to begin using hats, invite to whole people wear hats no caps, :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap

 

[monbla256]

Started when I was 4/5 yo ....

.... as my new avatar shows, it was a six panel billed cap which matched the blue serge short pants suit my mother had sewn for me! She even took an old camels hair overcoat of my grandfathers and remade an overcoat for me to wear with my short pants wool suit in the winter! That was over 60 years ago and I'm STILL wearing hats Like most ALL the men of my age in my family! ( since most of the folks here have a hat on their head in their avatar, I thought I'd follow suit )

 

[Gilboa]

In the past I have been wearing hats on and off (not literally )

Now that I live in England, the country of heavy gales and downpours, I always wear a hat. I am lucky that I can make them myself so I can construct them to whatever purpose they have to fit.

I wear hats firstly for protection followed closely by 'hiding a bad hair day' and least but not last: 'for making a point'.

 

[DAJE]

I've always liked hats, though they've only become an everyday item in recent years.

I got sick of being sunburned when I was a kid, so I started wearing straw or cotton hats during summer when I was a teenager. At that time (1980s) in Australia they started taking skin cancer more seriously, so sunhat-wearing was promoted as being a sensible thing to do.

At some point towards the end of the 80s, I discovered that hats were also useful for keeping the rain off my glasses, and keeping my head warm in winter. In the fullness of time I started to feel naked without one, and nowadays I rarely venture outdoors bareheaded.

They look good, they feel comfortable, and they're very practical... non-hat-wearers are missing out on a good thing.

 

[Hangman]

My beginnings...

I always admired my grandfather as a young child and grew up noticing all the different hats that he wore. Thinking that I would want to wear one, like him, my wife and daughters bought me a Stetson Chatham for Christmas. I didn't know if I would wear it very often, but it wasn't long before I knew I needed some other colors because I enjoyed sporting a fedora. Now I am up to nine in my collection with no definite end in site. My grandfather was a great man and I wish to carry on his legacy in more than just this way. He is missed by many...

 

[Samuel]

What is your interest in wearing hats?

bye

 

[Lefty]

merge please

 

[Samuel]

BS

 

[Young fogey]

My first proper hat is an East German Army grey ushanka, from an Army surplus store nearly 20 years ago. Next is my grey Oxford cap, bought two years ago. Then... my girlfriend reminded me about 'Crime Story'; I really liked it. And she has her late grandfather's very dark blue or black (can't tell now) Borsalino; tried it on a year and a half ago and after that it was only a matter of time. Got my first fedora, a vintage grey Christys fur felt, a year ago and have kept going. I now have six fedoras, wearing one every day.

 

[Bernie Zack]

Went bald, needed the cover.

 

[fmw]

I rode for a college rodeo team in the 1960's. A hat was simply part of the uniform.

 

[Alan-Eby]

I've always liked them, its just recently I found any I liked to wear often. My interest in dress hats always goes back to Dick Tracy and the detective stories by Dashile Hammett.

 

[Seth Hawkins]

Why I wear a fedora...

I've reached that point in my life where I know who I am, and am comfortable with the man I see in the mirror. That man wants to wear a fedora. And he doesn't care what anyone else thinks. Plus, I think I look good in one.

I have a few ball caps, and a couple western hats, too. But none of them are "me". The closest I ever got to a fedora was a campaign hat in the Corps.

Though I've only been wearing it for a relatively short time, my fedora feels like a part of me, and I feel undressed without it. Until I found this place I had no idea there were others out there like me who like these hats and enjoy wearing them as much as I do.

I think it's a shame that they ever went out of style.

 

[scooter]

Well, I'll second everything Seth Hawkins so eloquently stated. I'll also say I idolized my grandfather, who always wore a hat; and though he has been gone for over 40 years, he still represents what a man should look like in my eyes. I look in the mirror and I like what I see, and it took me a long time to reach that point in my life.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Once December day in 1994, I happened to be downtown during a cold rain. Meyer the Hatter, the local shop, had always been on my radar, so I said, "I think I need a hat."

I settled for one of those wool outback-ish hats in a loden green. It was fine . . . but then "The Sting" appeared on local TV, and I loved the brown and grey fedoras Newman and Redford wore, and I went back to Meyer's for a brown fur felt Stetson. Over the next few years I bought several more Stetsons and Biltmores, a Dobbs straw, and more.

For a while in the early 2000s, though, I rarely wore a hat. Then I caught Nicole "The Goddess" Kidman in "Australia," was intrigued by the scenes in which she wore a grey Akubra, and while Googling the movie I ran across the discussion here. Before I knew it I'd ordered a Fed IV, and was off to the races again, even going so far as to order a custom from Art Fawcett.

 

[in/y]

I dabbled with hats in high school, an open road type that my dad had purchased in Dallas more as a souvenir (he never wore it that I remember). Also a 60's style fedora that was also dad's though it didn't take at that time.

After 2 years at the local community college (and not waring hats), I transferred to the big state university (Penn State). My first week there I wandered into an army/navy store that happened to be selling cheap, pressed felt hats. I bought a top hat.

I wore that around campus/town for a while. A couple of friends that I made there later bought top hats as well. The three of us would walk around town with our top hats on. From time to time one of us would whisper "1-2-3" where upon we would all tip our hats and say hello to an unsuspecting passerby.

Eventually, the hat wore out/fell apart. I didn't replace it.

After college I began regular trips to the thrift stores around town. The early 1980's look was not something I wanted to wear. I was able to find some good vintage (30's -50's) suits/suits/ties/etc. which became the bulk of my wardrobe.

At the thrift stores, hats were always a problem. I've got a big head (7 5/8). However I always tried on the hats that they had. I finally found one that fit (this was around 1982) and have been wearing them ever since though I do prefer a boater in the warmer weather these days.

Recently, my 11 year old daughter asked me, "Daddy, do you always go out waring a hat?". I had never thought about it before, but when I did, I told her yes. Her response was, "I thought so.".

 

[bradbraden]

When I was a kid I used to stay up to watch the late show and the star of a lot of the movies they ran in that time frame was Charlton Heston. I thought he was the coolest ever, whether he was shouting down the ten commandments from the mountaintop, racing chariots, fighting apes or just playing the anti hero in movies like dark city. The roles where he was a hard nosed, cynical tough guy with good buried somewhere underneath were the ones I liked the best. The Characters he portrayed in Secret of the Incas and The greatest show on earth wore fedoras and leather jackets and for my money no one ever pulled that look off better than Mr Heston. Needless to say that look worn by my boyhood idol really left an impression on me. When Indiana jones came along it rang a bell in a part of my mind that had been packed away with old memories. However it wasn't until the last couple of years that I felt it was finally time to wear that look myself. It is a great look from a great era great fashion, great music, what took me so long?