Pulling Off the Casual Look

[Forgotten Man]

There's no pull chain though.

Not all lamps had pull chains!

 

[Tone]

That style is your own and it works.

This looks just fine, JLagman:

J.M.O.
When you have a hat that looks right you can feel it. There is no doubt; no convincing yourself it'll eventually look good, etc. You'll know when you find one and see it on your head - almost instantly.

Honestly, you look at home in the hat you've got there in that picture. No rules. Really depends on whether you're trying to dress up (matching hat - like a woman and her purse, for example) or just have one that takes fashion second, but looks good anyway no matter what you're up to. You will know when you have that kind of hat.

Can it be on and NOT draw attention to itself before the rest of you? Yours does that very well and doesn't look like you consciously picked out a hat to wear that day.

So, yeah, you're doing it right. :eusa_clap

Casual and casual.

 

[theinterchange]

That's a great photo, and look you've got going on there.

I think it looks great, comfortable. As hat wearing SHOULD be!

Randy

 

[MCrider]

Casual and casual.

I've always thought that a white shirt and a brown Federation style hat were a great casual look, and that picture proves it!

 

[Tone]

Thanks...

The Akubra Bushman has been around long before even the Federation III was thought up. So, not sure how "Federation Style" it is lol -

The specs on the Bushman are great, though. Thanks. It continues to be one of my all time favorite "everywear" hats.

As long as they keep making this and the Squatter. It's all good.

 

[theinterchange]

The Akubra Bushman has been around long before even the Federation III was thought up. So, not sure how "Federation Style" it is lol -

The specs on the Bushman are great, though. Thanks. It continues to be one of my all time favorite "everywear" hats.

As long as they keep making this and the Squatter. It's all good.

So, that's a Bushman in the above photo? Gotta add one to the list of wants, that looks great!

Randy

 

[Midwest Boater]

lots of good examples here, and jlagman i would say your doing fine. as for myself i may have gone a bit overboard.

in my defiance it bone chilling cold here in Michigan and i still have to work outside plus holdup my personal since of style.

 

[dnjan]

Casual, yet the paint stains match the shirt!
Subtle, but stylish!

 

[daniel78]

So this is my first post here. Since on the weekend I bought my first real fedora. It's a Moonstone Grey Akubra Stylemaster. Fortunately for me I live not far from the Hattery - which is the retail store for hatsdirect. Anyway, thanks to all of you for your thoughts and ideas I read about in other threads. One of my concerns with this hat was whether or not I'd be able to 'pull off' wearing it in all kinds of attire. My thoughts: I spent the weekend wearing it with jeans, brown leather boots, a T shirt and a grey coat. And according to my wife it worked fine. She paid the ultimate compliment when she said that hat was born to be worn by me. Even though I'm only 33, slim and work with youth. So there you go. I like to think I don't care what people think about me, including what I wear. But I know I do. Still, I love the hat. I love wearing it, and I'll try to let that govern things, more than worrying what people think. But I'm finding that despite 'fashion' fedoras being all the rage, you can't help but feel people are looking at you in a hat like this. Am I imagining that???

 

[TomS]

I wear a fedora all the time. However, I have noticed that people in their 70s and 80s seem to feel a fedora should only be worn with a suit. I also think there is some regional association with the type of attire a hat is worn with. By that I mean in New England, where I'm from, you dont see as many fedoras dressed down, but in Kansas where I have family, I see thin ribbon fedoras with jeans quite often.
Best,
Tom

 

[daniel78]

I wear a fedora all the time. However, I have noticed that people in their 70s and 80s seem to feel a fedora should only be worn with a suit. I also think there is some regional association with the type of attire a hat is worn with. By that I mean in New England, where I'm from, you dont see as many fedoras dressed down, but in Kansas where I have family, I see thin ribbon fedoras with jeans quite often.
Best,
Tom

Where I live, in Sydney, I hardly see anyone wearing them at all! Although I'm now starting to see a few more...

 

[William Stratford]

I've seen a few pictures of loungers wearing casual attire with their felt hats, how do you all do it? I can't help but feel ridiculous wearing jeans, a t-shirt or sweater, and a fedora; I always feel the need to dress up. I still dress casually with some of my hats, usually when I'm running brief errands and don't have to be seen in public very for long, but I can't help but feel like a goon when I do it.

[huh]

I can understand this; a hat always needs something over a shirt to look right, whether that be a waistcoat ('vest' to you linguistically challenged colonials ), a jacket or an overcoat. A hat without them looks like you don't know if you are inside or outside. The exception being only when it is too hot to wear something over your shirt.

 

[Brent Hutto]

My personal line is drawn at shorts and/or tee shirt. It is very rare that I wear any outfit with a collar on the shirt and full-length slacks that doesn't look fine with my thin-ribbon, brown Alessandria. Including jeans, golf shirts, running shoes, whatever.

But with a no-collar shirt and especially with shorts I just don't think a felt hat works at all on me. I also have a dressier Tumwater hat that isn't the best choice with jeans IMO. So if I'm wearing jeans and/or sneakers I usually stick to the Borsalino. But the Tumwater goes with lots of casual clothing.

And at any rate, I almost never wear a tie or a dress jacket (funerals being the exception) so if hats were only for dress-up I would not own any hats.

 

[Dick Ireland]

I've seen a few pictures of loungers wearing casual attire with their felt hats, how do you all do it? I can't help but feel ridiculous wearing jeans, a t-shirt or sweater, and a fedora; I always feel the need to dress up. I still dress casually with some of my hats, usually when I'm running brief errands and don't have to be seen in public very for long, but I can't help but feel like a goon when I do it.

[huh]

I feel the same way. Thankfully (I guess) I wear a suit five or six days a week and am happy to put one on anytime I take my girl out to dinner and a movie, so I can wear felt hats more of the time. Out of a suit, I wear a newsboy cap and button-down shirt without a tie.

 

[Blackthorn]

I only wear suits to weddings and funerals. And I love fedoras, as you all know. Living in California as I do, we are very laid back about such things. And with it being summer, now I'm wearing T shirts, shorts and sandals...with my Art Fawcett hats, my vintage hats, whatever.

 

[1961MJS]

I wear a fedora all the time. However, I have noticed that people in their 70s and 80s seem to feel a fedora should only be worn with a suit. I also think there is some regional association with the type of attire a hat is worn with. By that I mean in New England, where I'm from, you dont see as many fedoras dressed down, but in Kansas where I have family, I see thin ribbon fedoras with jeans quite often.
Best,
Tom

Hi Tom

One thing you have to remember is that when the 70 and 80 year olds were born, everyone wore a suit and tie unless they were at work AND that work required other clothing. Until the 1950's at the latest, most men wore long pants, a shirt, a sport-coat or suit coat, and a hat or cap. Only baseball players playing baseball (and kids) wore baseball caps back then.

Having said that, it IS helpful to achieve a balanced look. A t-shirt and cut-offs doesn't beg for a top hat (to be extreme). A t-shirt and cut-offs can be worn with a decent Panama, or a lighter colored felt hat. The Indiana Jones style hat can be worn more casually because of it's movie history. It's important to have both a dressy hat that matches a suit or sport-coat that you own, and a casual or beater hat that will go with jeans.

Your clothes should also match. Our management has started wearing a suit with a polo shirt instead of a regular button-down shirt, which to me looks STUPID.

Hope this helps. I ain't exactly a fashion sort of guy.

 

[tonyb]

I'm with Brent and MJS on this one.

Like just about everything in this life, it's contextual -- what looks wrong in one place and time might seem just right in another. Me, I'm not big on T-shirts and shorts. Nothing against 'em on other people (indeed, some young[ish] women do wonderful things to shorts and a T-shirt), but that look does little to emphasize my more fortunate physical attributes, such as they are. A shirt with a collar at minimum, and long pants, be they jeans or khakis or whatever, and just about any hat this side of a topper works for me.

But if I lived in the desert Southwest, I'd be reconsidering my refusal to wear T-shirts and short pants out in public, I'm sure.

 

[danofarlington]

The thesis that fedora hats are dressy is generally true in my view. You need dressier clothes often to look good in certain fedoras. However, with my most formal and imposing custom-made gray fedora, I think it goes better with a shirt not buttoned at the top, and pants could be blue jeans or other choices. Sometimes wearing a fedora with a full suit is too dressy for my preference. I do have some hats--a few of my Borsalinos--that just don't go well with anything other than suit, sport coat or business-type shirt. So it depends on the hat. In general, long story short, I think you can vary the formality of clothes. Personally I like to always have a collared shirt of some kind on when wearing a fedora.

 

[jlee562]

Unless it's a straw hat, I would generally avoid fedoras and shorts. But I wear fedoras and t-shirts all the time. Being in San Francisco though, it's rare that the only thing I'm wearing is a t-shirt; I usually have a jacket or other outerwear on.

 

[Dan Allen]

My usual summer attire is either Khaki cargo shorts or long pants and a flats type long sleeve fishing shirt with sleeves rolled up, white most of the time. On my morning run to the post office, when the heat is not to brutal I forgo straw and don either a silverbelly or gray fedora. On those days I seem to get the positive comments so perhaps that suits my "style". Of course it could be that I am close enough to "old gizzerhood" that "style" has crossed over to "character". I'll take the compliments ether way.