Woodfluter said:That said, I wonder how much is conditioning and how much is something inherently right or wrong about colors? I suspect it's mostly the former. We just don't expect bright red hats.
Don't expect a bright red fedoras on a man, that is - a red baseball cap isn't unusual at all.
In my early teens, my father bought a pair of bright red felt broad brimmed hats, no ribbon, primarily for hunting, and I wore mine fairly often when it rained. Can't remember what became of it; the last I remember wearing it was on campus when I was an undergraduate (things were different back in the '70s.) My father wore his with some kind of smokey bear crown shape, or maybe it was the "Gus" dent I've seen on a couple of pictures of cowboy hats. Think mine may have eventually gone to something like a C crown, and in the end so much taper it was nearly conical. Smokey bear doesn't really suit my face. The color went well with a tattered army surplus olive green twill jacket and blue jeans. I'd probably still be wearing it, if it had miraculously held up undamaged through everything - once I get used to doing something, it doesn't matter a lot that no one else does it, think most are that way.