Question about Indiana Jones

[FedoraFan112390]

Just a question of accuracy. The 4th Indy movie took place in 1957 and in the town scenes and the scenes where Indy is boarding the train, nearly every man is still wearing a hat of some kind. Would this have been accurate by '57?

 

[Queue]

With my very rudimentary knowledge of fashion history, I would say no off the cuff.

 

[Pat_H]

Hat's were in decline by 57, but they were still very much in use. While I'm not a student of it, what seems to have been the case is that form modified during the 50s and early 60s, when they really began to phase out rapidly for average dress use. Still, if you watch films made in the late 50s and early 60s that depict average American men, at least in 60s, there's a lot of suits, ties, and hats in use.

 

[Pat_H]

Hat's were in decline by 57, but they were still very much in use. While I'm not a student of it, what seems to have been the case is that form modified during the 50s and early 60s, when they really began to phase out rapidly for average dress use. Still, if you watch films made in the late 50s and early 60s that depict average American men, at least in 60s, there's a lot of suits, ties, and hats in use.

That should read, "the form became modified".

Others can no doubt answer with greater accuracy, but what seems to be the case to me is that by the late 50s brims were becoming shorter, which lasted through the early 60s. By the late 50s you could get away without wearing a hat (perhaps you could in the early 50s), but a lot of men still wore them, which was the case in the early 60s as well.

Of course, when we speak of "hats" here, we're really speaking of Fedoras, in this context. If we look at other sorts of dress hats, like Hombergs for example, or bowlers, they had really taken a hit by that time, and had quite rare use indeed.

 

[Goose.]

...nearly every man is still wearing a hat of some kind. Would this have been accurate by '57?

I was born in 1957 without a hat.
But in Japan, where I was born, from pictures from family, I surmised that only older men and ojichan (grandfathers) wore hats...and if they did, it was indeed a fedora...but only a few at that.
In the MacArthur (THAT spells "General" in my Bible) Era, most Japanese wanted to emulate the "West"...so, if they weren't there, they weren't here...at least in numbers.
But I'm no expert. Just my observation from a ton of pics of the era (57-59).
And, looking at pics from the Noridc line of my lineage during the time, I cannot recall anyone wearing a hat...except my uncle who was always dapper.
So, that is the value add I bring to this thread...zero.

 

[Swagman]

I was born in 1957 without a hat.
But in Japan, where I was born, from pictures from family, I surmised that only older men and ojichan (grandfathers) wore hats..

Here's my grandfather from a little before that. I'll have to try and confirm the year.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_5e38wWesWS4/SajMDMfG3TI/AAAAAAAAAJk/dhnSRFEcDRs/s512/jichan.jpg

 

[Tampahound]

Just a question of accuracy. The 4th Indy movie took place in 1957 and in the town scenes and the scenes where Indy is boarding the train, nearly every man is still wearing a hat of some kind. Would this have been accurate by '57?

I enjoyed the Indy movies, but historical accuracy is not what they are about. Fantasy would better describe the Indy movies. Historical fiction is fun but in this genre accuracy usually takes a back seat to artistic flare.

 

[Wolfwood]

Just a question of accuracy. The 4th Indy movie took place in 1957 and in the town scenes and the scenes where Indy is boarding the train, nearly every man is still wearing a hat of some kind. Would this have been accurate by '57?

Not necessarily, but perhaps they were testing the protective qualities of a hat against a nuclear bomb? I recall seeing images where fedoras were _the_ thing to wear if you wanted to survive...

 

[Goose.]

Not necessarily, but perhaps they were testing the protective qualities of a hat against a nuclear bomb? I recall seeing images where fedoras were _the_ thing to wear if you wanted to survive...

Yep...even Bert the Turtle wore a fedora w/ a trolley (those with untrained peeps may think it's a helmet) in those days
DUCK and COVER!!!

 

[suitedcboy]

I ran across an old company newsletter of my dad's from 1959 in Birmingham Alabama. They were doing a groundbreaking ceremony for a building expansion at his office and they number of men in the crowd of a hundred +/- WITHOUT hats were few. This was an insurance company which I do not believe to be a business where hat wearing was above the norm for the time.

 

[kaosharper1]

At Princeton, where he was on the train, there probably would have been more hats. I was just watching the first season of Mad Men which also takes place in 1959. They pride that show on being pretty accurate on the fashion side and all the ad men wear hats, though they are smaller brims. At one point one of them says that JFK won't be elected because "he doesn't even wear a hat."

 

[quintox]

Skin cancer statistics in the hat wearing era compared to modern era would be interesting. In asia i have seen the people wear cloth (wrapped) on their head when they do not have a hat.





....... Audaces fortunat juvat timidos que repellit .......
" Fortune favors the bold and scorns the timid "

 

[Corky]

Hats ceased to be worn in 1960...

Hats ceased to be worn in 1960, when John F. Kennedy was inaugurated.

THis was the beginning of what would be called THE SIXTIES.

JFK famously did not like to wear a hat.

Before his inaugural, top hats were a traditional part of the ceremony. (I think he carried one to his inauguration, but did not wear it.)

When JFK made it clear he did not like to wear hats and stopped wearing them, EVERYBODY WHO WAS COOL stopped wearing them. If you were still wearing a hat, at some point, you looked around and realized that nobody else was wearing one.

A similar thing happened when the Beatles toured the United States a few years later: EVERYBODY WHO WAS COOL just allowed his hair to grow longer between haircuts. Soon if you didn't have long hair, you were definitely NOT COOL.

This period would later come to be known as the high point of THE SIXTIES.

Later, in the early '70's, Francis Ford Coppola was casting parts in THE GODFATHER movie. To try to get parts in that movie, every working actor in New York and Hollywood got their long hair cut '50 short. Suddenly, if you still had long hair and walked into a hip bar in Manhattan or Santa Monica, you looked as out of place as Willie Nelson with his pigtails, DEFINITELY NOT COOL.

That event marked the cultural/sartorial transition point between THE SIXTIES and THE SEVENTIES.

These days pretty much anything goes.

But remember, the "Indiana Jones" character is a pastiche based on the lead characters in movie serials of the 30's and 40's. His costume decisions were made by some wardrobe department or costume designer in Hollywood.

Be who you are, find your own style, and dress as you like to express your own personality. But, if you choose to personate some fictional character or to be inspired by the style of another era, do so with wit and humor.

 

[John in Covina]

While hats in general were in decline by that time, the percentage of men wearing them would depend on local custom, or if they were in an area where they were on the cutting edge of fashion versus a backwater place where new fashion took longer to take hold.

Some places and some types of jobs still demanded you wore a hat.

Accountants were told to buy and wear a furfelt hat well into the 60's in some places.

If you were to view other fims made in 1956-58 you'd still find a fair amount of hat wearing, men tend to be creatures of habit and habits are hard to break.

Straw boaters lost in popularity probably n the late 1930's yet a percentage of men still wore them into the 50's. There is a late picture of Truman with his cabinete and others in the admin in his second term and there is a prominent guy in a boater right up front.

It's not like hat wearing was ended by law with penaties attached, it continued for quite a while! Heck, even James Bond wears a hat in the first few films.

 

[Pat_H]

Hats ceased to be worn in 1960, when John F. Kennedy was inaugurated.

THis was the beginning of what would be called THE SIXTIES.

JFK famously did not like to wear a hat.

Before his inaugural, top hats were a traditional part of the ceremony. (I think he carried one to his inauguration, but did not wear it.)

When JFK made it clear he did not like to wear hats and stopped wearing them, EVERYBODY WHO WAS COOL stopped wearing them. If you were still wearing a hat, at some point, you looked around and realized that nobody else was wearing one.

A similar thing happened when the Beatles toured the United States a few years later: EVERYBODY WHO WAS COOL just allowed his hair to grow longer between haircuts. Soon if you didn't have long hair, you were definitely NOT COOL.

This period would later come to be known as the high point of THE SIXTIES.

Later, in the early '70's, Francis Ford Coppola was casting parts in THE GODFATHER movie. To try to get parts in that movie, every working actor in New York and Hollywood got their long hair cut '50 short. Suddenly, if you still had long hair and walked into a hip bar in Manhattan or Santa Monica, you looked as out of place as Willie Nelson with his pigtails, DEFINITELY NOT COOL.

That event marked the cultural/sartorial transition point between THE SIXTIES and THE SEVENTIES.

These days pretty much anything goes.

But remember, the "Indiana Jones" character is a pastiche based on the lead characters in movie serials of the 30's and 40's. His costume decisions were made by some wardrobe department or costume designer in Hollywood.

Be who you are, find your own style, and dress as you like to express your own personality. But, if you choose to personate some fictional character or to be inspired by the style of another era, do so with wit and humor.

The linking of JFK to hat wearing has been pretty much shown to be a myth. There's a lengthy thread on that here on the lounge somewhere, and I guess there's even a book on it. FWIW, JFK did wear the typical shorter brim Fedora on occasion during his administration, and the first really hatless President was Nixon, rather than JFK. And, fwiw, he's not the first President to appear at least part of inauguration hatless, as I recently saw some film footage of FDR delivering his second inauguration speech (I think), without a hat.

The decline of the hat is much more tied to the rise of the automobile, amongst other things, and hat sales were declining in the 40s. But they hung on into the early 60s as commonly worn dress items.

 

[Pat_H]

While hats in general were in decline by that time, the percentage of men wearing them would depend on local custom, or if they were in an area where they were on the cutting edge of fashion versus a backwater place where new fashion took longer to take hold.

Some places and some types of jobs still demanded you wore a hat.

Accountants were told to buy and wear a furfelt hat well into the 60's in some places.

If you were to view other fims made in 1956-58 you'd still find a fair amount of hat wearing, men tend to be creatures of habit and habits are hard to break.

Straw boaters lost in popularity probably n the late 1930's yet a percentage of men still wore them into the 50's. There is a late picture of Truman with his cabinete and others in the admin in his second term and there is a prominent guy in a boater right up front.

It's not like hat wearing was ended by law with penaties attached, it continued for quite a while! Heck, even James Bond wears a hat in the first few films.

Quite right. I think this sums it up well.

And lets recall that we're really discussing Fedoras here, when we reference "hats". Fedoras hung on, with shorter brims, in some localities in to the 60s, for standard men's wear.

Other types of formally common men's hats were very much in decline by the 50s. Some of those types have probably regained a lot of ground since then. The newsboy, for example, is likely more common now than it was in the 60s. The homberg, on the other hand, and the bowler, were very much on their way out by the 50s. Cowboy hats, which are really a working hat, have hung on throughout. As the reference to accountants is mentioned above, I likely ought to mention that graduates of the Colorado School of Mines, in the 50s, 60s, and I think even at least part of the 70s, routinely received a shorter brim Stetson at graduation, in this era.

 

[Pat_H]

To add a bit, sometimes contemporary films can be a bit instructive.

The well known film "The Apartment" was filmed in 1960. In The Apartment, which takes place in a big city, with the men all working for the same insurance firm, the men typically are depicted wearing suits and hats, when outside. Granted, this is a documentary, but the goal in the costuming was to depict the actors as they would have looked at that time.

In the late 60s Frank Sinatra appeared as detective Tony Rome, in a film that was supposed to depict him as a cool and hip detective in Florida. He invariably wore a Fedora in it. Now, that film can't be taken as representative, but it does mean that at that time, costuming didn't regard wearing a hat as depicting something odd.

 

[kaosharper1]

James Bond also wore a hat in that opening sequence down the gun barrel in the Sean Connery movies.

 

[Pat_H]

Quite right. I think this sums it up well.

And lets recall that we're really discussing Fedoras here, when we reference "hats". Fedoras hung on, with shorter brims, in some localities in to the 60s, for standard men's wear.

Other types of formally common men's hats were very much in decline by the 50s. Some of those types have probably regained a lot of ground since then. The newsboy, for example, is likely more common now than it was in the 60s. The homberg, on the other hand, and the bowler, were very much on their way out by the 50s. Cowboy hats, which are really a working hat, have hung on throughout. As the reference to accountants is mentioned above, I likely ought to mention that graduates of the Colorado School of Mines, in the 50s, 60s, and I think even at least part of the 70s, routinely received a shorter brim Stetson at graduation, in this era.

Correcting a typo here, that should read "granted, this wasn't a documentary". Oops

 

[scotrace]

Propagating that "JFK Killed Hats" claptrap will get you ejected forthwith.

For the eleventy hundredth time, he wore, carried, and was photographed carrying and wearing a topper on inauguration day. He remarked about how much he LIKED it.
NO PRESIDENT wore a hat during the speech, because no one elected to such a high office has ever been that big an oaf.

The decline in hat wearing among men began before WWI.