How do folks react to your hat wearing?

[Joao Encarnado]

I have posted this many times before, but I will continue to do so. Wear what you like for yourself. Life is too short to go through the day worrying about what one thinks of your dress. If you like wearing hats, go for it. If you enjoy wearing a sandal on one foot, a boot on the other, and glasses with no lenses, then by all means, have at it.

+1 on that or I would never use my westerns on the street!

Eventually they'll grow accustomed to seeing you in it and, as often happens, you'll probably become known as "the guy in the hat". Outlast the fools!

I'm known as the "cowboy" around here because I wear westerns. No other people here wear hats like my westerns.

65 pages of hat comments, and quite a few of them are "anti-fedora". Just read the thread

Do I count as a "anti-fedora" because I don't like to see westerns being converted to fedoras?

 

[Zombie_61]

...Do I count as a "anti-fedora" because I don't like to see westerns being converted to fedoras?

I'd say that makes you "pro-western" more than "anti-fedora", i.e. someone who believes a western hat should be preserved as a western hat. And, to a point, I agree with you--there are plenty of fedoras available, and if someone wants a fedora they should buy a fedora. On the other hand, I understand the "challenge" of converting a hat from one style to another, and there are a number of members here who do so brilliantly.

Now, if you were to publicly make a statement like, "I hate fedoras," that's another matter.

 

[Joao Encarnado]

Now, if you were to publicly make a statement like, "I hate fedoras," that's another matter.

Because they have such a narrow brim, I don't pay attention to them. I do like the ribbon/color/crown crease at some but that's it.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Vintage western hats can be bought quite cheaply too, certainly cheaper than the average fedora, which is a good reason to convert them if you really want a fedora but can't afford a decent one. Also if an unloved cowboy hat can find a new lease of life as a different style, then why not.
That said I am an admirer of cowboy hats & wide brims do get my pulse racing but unfortunately anything over 3" just makes me look like a redneck hillbilly (the squint & toothless grin don't help either )
Speaking of western hats I have just aquired a black cowboy hat which I'm hoping to model on the 'masterpiece' Clint wore in High Plains Drifter, in the near future. (I'll post some pics when completed)) I doubt I'll have the courage to wear it in public though & black hats do tend to make me look like a Rabbi, so it will be my dirty little secret hat, uniquely reserved for admiring myself in the bathroom mirror with.

 

[gtdean48]

I'd say that makes you "pro-western" more than "anti-fedora", i.e. someone who believes a western hat should be preserved as a western hat....

I've cut down a few westerns to a more "city hat" width of 2 7/8", some to 3" & gave them a more "outback" look.
I do have my westerns that I wear nights & weekends but working in corporate software business, I wear the smaller brims to come off less "cowboy". Some still consider it a cowboy hat regardless.
Cutdown Resistol =

Western =

 

[hatsRme]

Yesterday evening, I thought I reached a high point of hat wearing experience. At the senior community where my mother lives, a complex of approximately 450 residents, average 87 years of age (these people KNOW their hats) I had forgotten my key to the main entry. A coven, err, cadre of "security" ladies (residents) near the automated door watched for a moment as I began to call to be "buzzed" in. Before I could dial two digits, one of the ladies sprang into action, took the few steps required to reach to door opener, while LOUDLY proclaiming to her friends, "I know that's Edna's son... he always wears such nice hats!"

I wanted to pick her up and hug her.

She might not have let go, though...

 

[Joao Encarnado]

Spain seems not used to have someone hatted with a wide brim western, so everyone looking at me...

 

[hatsRme]

Always a leader, Joao.

 

[Genuine Classic Gangster]

average 87 years of age (these people KNOW their hats)

I have had a similar experience a few months ago. An elderly woman came up to me and said, "Nice fedora...very nice!"

I was surprised that she actually knew that my hat was a fedora and hence named it with that word. In my experience, that rarely happens. The younger generations from whom I get the most comments/compliments on my fedora (probably because I am in their midst more often) always refer to it only with the word "hat," or sometimes they might ask me: "What type of hat is that?" Likewise, when I am asked to remove my fedora for government photos or whatnot, the youngish employees always say to me, "Please remove your hat."

From these experiences I surmise that in general, the younger generations do not know what a fedora is, whereas the older generations do.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Spain seems not used to have someone hatted with a wide brim western, so everyone looking at me...

I don't know if it's because the Spanish aren't used to cowboy hats that they look at you but you certainly catch the eye & stand out in a crowd. I'd look at you too, or rather at your hat(s) you've got some stunning westerns & you wear them well. (shame about your shirts though )

 

[Joao Encarnado]

Always a leader, Joao.

I don't know if it's because the Spanish aren't used to cowboy hats that they look at you but you certainly catch the eye & stand out in a crowd. I'd look at you too, or rather at your hat(s) you've got some stunning westerns & you wear them well. (shame about your shirts though )

Thank you. I too look at people wearing hats trying to figure if they are straw or felt. People are wearing more and more (straw) hats this summer.
What do my shirts have?

 

[HamilcarBarca3]

Yesterday evening, I thought I reached a high point of hat wearing experience. At the senior community where my mother lives, a complex of approximately 450 residents, average 87 years of age (these people KNOW their hats) I had forgotten my key to the main entry. A coven, err, cadre of "security" ladies (residents) near the automated door watched for a moment as I began to call to be "buzzed" in. Before I could dial two digits, one of the ladies sprang into action, took the few steps required to reach to door opener, while LOUDLY proclaiming to her friends, "I know that's Edna's son... he always wears such nice hats!"

I wanted to pick her up and hug her.

She might not have let go, though...

Where I work at we have a lot of older people. One of the reasons I enjoy wearing something vintage to work is that the older folk sometimes recognize the details. I had a chat with a 94 year old woman regarding headwear. She seen me having my hat in hand before I step outside to work so she asked me once if I was heading to church. She told me her father and other men wore their hats pretty much to church only. It's always a nice experience

 

[fedoracentric]

I had a chat with a 94 year old woman regarding headwear. She seen me having my hat in hand before I step outside to work so she asked me once if I was heading to church. She told me her father and other men wore their hats pretty much to church only.

If you had this conversation any time in the last 10 years, at 94, that woman just pretty much told us that hat wearing was almost thing of the past by the 1940s!!

 

[Hal]

If you had this conversation any time in the last 10 years, at 94, that woman just pretty much told us that hat wearing was almost thing of the past by the 1940s!!

In the UK, by and large, it WAS a thing of the past by 1950. I have no recollection of my father (died 1962) ever wearing a hat.

 

[g.durand]

On the other hand, in parts of the Southern and Western U.S., although hat wearing was diminishing, men regularly wore hats for a decade or two longer. I remember seeing many hatted men in small Texas towns in the '60s, and my grandfather, my father and my uncle wearing western hats into the '80s. A clear memory of my father is his wearing a thin-ribbon OR-style hat in the '50s and early '60s, moving on to western-style straw and felt hats.

But I'm getting off-topic. These days I'm pretty much the exception in public, but the few compliments I get are always positive. I have yet to receive a negative remark about my hats (unless you consider the occasional Indiana Jones remark a negative comment).

 

[PHIL1959]

both my Grandfathers wore hats,trilbys and one wore a french beret with style.This was up to their passing 1965/1973

In the UK, by and large, it WAS a thing of the past by 1950. I have no recollection of my father (died 1962) ever wearing a hat.

 

[Hal]

both my Grandfathers wore hats,trilbys and one wore a french beret with style.This was up to their passing 1965/1973

They were probably of the oldest generation alive at the time. What about the next generation "down" - your father's? My grandfather wore a hat until his death in 1952 - but he was 83 when he died.
When I started teaching (in a boys' grammar-school, with an all-male staff) only those over 55 wore hats.

 

[Quetzal]

I've always had positive reactions, though only guys my age make comments ("Only YOU could wear a hat! We'd look weird if WE did!" I reply, "you've just got to find the right one"). The older crowd (by older I'm referring to those in their late 80s and 90s; everyone else, as a lively Korean Vet once told me, "is just a baby"; strange how these folks are full of live more so than their children in their 60s and 70s), both men and women, are usually reminded of their fathers or other male relatives; some say that they used to wear a hat, but then forgot one day and it was over. One lady at church even told me how I looked like her husband 60 years ago, and then, as they both walked off, she asked her husband, "How come YOU don't wear a hat anymore??"

Everyone in between seldom say anything; occasionally I'll get an adult who makes a nice comment, or the Baby Boomer who tells me that hats are only worn by old people (though in a light-hearted manner with a grin).

My favorite reaction of mine is the following, copied from another thread:

When I was a Badger Boy (a program originally designed to counteract Hitler's Youth Rallies), one of the veterans (a VERY fit and lively fellow) pulled me aside and said, "WHOA! I bought a hat just like yours 70 years ago when I came back from Japan! Maybe I'll start wearing it again if I can find it, along with those crazy painted-ties that I bought when I was young! We sure thought that we looked sharp back then!"

A very cool conversation.

-Quetzal

 

[fedoracentric]

Neither of my grandfathers (both born 1914) wore hats much in the 60s or 70s. One wore hats in the winter cold, though. They were nominally fedoras, but usually of the cloth variety, not felt.

 

[PHIL1959]

About the only comment i have received was by a young lad who said what a great looking hat i was wearing and could he buy it off me!