The confidence for the hat

[snowslider]

It's like asking if the man makes the hat, or does the hat make the man?

but in a previous topic about new hat wearers... it was brought up on a few occasions that it takes the right amount of confidence, to wear a hat.
or that one must be confident (comfortable) about it when doing so.

that is part of my dilemma. when it's just me and a mirror, i think i'm OK. when i step out in to this cruel world.

now as a younger lad, i had funny hair and dirty clothes so i was used to looks etc. but as a 33 yr old i'd rather blend in.
but then again not always.

silly topic i know, but i'd like to hear what everyone here has to say about confidence, attitude and your hat. i'm sure for some it's just as natural as can be, but it is not for all, i know.

 

[RBH]

Confidence is in the eye of the beholder my friend!!!
IF you like the hat it will show and it will seem the most normal thing to everyone else.

I would try wearing the hat on short trips to the store ect til you can get used to it. Because to everyone else... when they see you in your hat... they will just think you wear one all the time anyway!

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

 

[Fatdutchman]

I don't know if it has anything to do with confidence in my case. Since nobody has ever really cared about how I looked (definitely not in any positive manner at least), much to the detriment of my life in general, I finally just quit worrying about it and do what I want.

 

[scotrace]

Not silly at all!
If you poke around here, you'll find a post from me a few years ago saying something about feeling goofy pumping gas in a fedora. This week I realized I always did it that way, and would feel silly without.

Confidence, absolutely, but time also. You are changing a major thing about how you look, in a way that attracts attention. Soon, people ask "where's the hat?" if you aren't wearing one. It's like you've gone out without a head.

 

[Dr Trinidad]

I have worn hats for so long that I forget I have one on! And in all the years I have been doing this I have really never noticed anyone paying any attention to my hat unless it was to complament it. If you forget about the hat and don't draw attention to it no one else will think it is strange or odd. Just relax and have fun!

 

[luvthatlulu]

Not silly at all!
If you poke around here, you'll find a post from me a few years ago saying something about feeling goofy pumping gas in a fedora. This week I realized I always did it that way, and would feel silly without.

Confidence, absolutely, but time also. You are changing a major thing about how you look, in a way that attracts attention. Soon, people ask "where's the hat?" if you aren't wearing one. It's like you've gone out without a head.

Scotrace said it as well as it could be said. But, if it makes you feel any better, consider this: Do you think the adult guy with his "Bubba-bonnet" turned backwards sits up nights worrying about how you perceive him?

 

[Johnnysan]

Good advice from all! I had a similar transformation from feeling very self-conscious to now feeling very self-confident. Wearing a fedora is sorta like your first kiss...kinda scary at first, but then it gets a whole lot better!

 

[jake_fink]

It is a bit of an adjustment, but you soon stop thinking about it... except when it blows off and you have to chase it down the street. There is just no cool way of doing that.

 

[luvthatlulu]

Good advice from all! I had a similar transformation from feeling very self-conscious to now feeling very self-confident. Wearing a fedora is sorta like your first kiss...kinda scary at first, but then it gets a whole lot better!

I weren't skeered.

 

[Ugarte]

Fashion, Style and Image

As a recent convert to hats, I can see where the OP is coming from. Choosing to deviate from established norms of fashion involves a little risk. Some folks, like my kids, don't understand or appreciate a choice like a fedora. Carrying yourself with enough confidence to project a credible and comfortable image while wearing a fedora (or vest, or what have you) seems to me an important skill. Or perhaps it is a stage of development.

I know that I am not much of an attention whore these days, but around here when I don a suit and my Federation, I get looks. I get gawks. I get stares. I also get a fair share of compliments and that tells me I must be doing something right.

Now, if I could just come down on a haircut.

Mark
.

 

[fatwoul]

It's like asking if the man makes the hat, or does the hat make the man?...

If the hat is making the man, the hat is wearing the man too. It helps to remember the hat is an accessory:

...object or device not essential in itself but adding to the beauty, convenience, or effectiveness of something else

The "something else" that the hat is adding to the beauty, convenience and effectiveness of is you.

...that is part of my dilemma. when it's just me and a mirror, i think i'm OK. when i step out in to this cruel world...

People will look. People look at me when I am wearing a fedora, but I get just as many looks if I am wearing my newsboy, for some reason. So far, in several months of wearing a hat almost every time I leave the house, I have one comment which could have been considered to be negative, but even that was only because of the tone, not the words, and was in the third rudest town I know of (Exeter, UK).

...now as a younger lad, i had funny hair and dirty clothes so i was used to looks etc. but as a 33 yr old i'd rather blend in.
but then again not always...

When I was younger, I was less confident than I am now. I wore a baseball cap all the time, to the point that if I wasn't wearing one, I felt like the world was too open and scary; I got used to seeing the world in widescreen, and without my cap everything felt IMAX. lol

Now I have returned to hats, I have found comfort in them again. Yes, a hat can attract attention, but a hat can also conceal. Tip your head, and your face is obscured. In that respect, hats can be used in the same way as sunglasses, and plenty of people wear those. I suspect the use of shades is also a confidence-gaining strategy.

...Soon, people ask "where's the hat?" if you aren't wearing one. It's like you've gone out without a head.

I get that already! Since I started wearing a fedora, on the single occasion I have gone into town without one, I had two people ask me why I wasn't wearing a hat.

Scotrace said it as well as it could be said. But, if it makes you feel any better, consider this: Do you think the adult guy with his "Bubba-bonnet" turned backwards sits up nights worrying about how you perceive him?

So when I was in Exeter (same trip I got called a name, so I feeling a little deflated), I was sitting in a cafe, eating a sandwich, my Fieldmaster on the chair next to me (I wasn't raised in a barn, afterall). A man walked past the cafe, dressed almost completely in white, topped with a pure white Nike baseball cap, the brim completely flat and unshaped, at an angle. He was walking with total confidence, or at least, walking like he had some kind of medical complaint, in the way that these people tend to do. That helped me. I realised that if someone can wear as ridiculous a hat as that and be confident, the hats I wear should never be a cause of embarrassment. Since that moment of enlightenment, I have not questioned my confidence at all. I have not hesitated to wear a hat.

My sister read something in a magazine years ago, which was supposed to be a confidence-building exercise, nothing to do with hats specifically. It said that when you are out, you are to pretend that everyone who glances at you does so because they want to be you or want to have sex with you. Pretty soon you are smiling a little more, perhaps just out of the amusement of the little mental game you're playing. You're walking a little taller, and people are probably glancing at you more, boosting the effect further. It sounds like utter rubbish, but I've tried it myself, and it really does seem to work.

 

[Sefton]

Part confidence and part just getting used to it. As for myself I like to just melt into the background,I really don't want to stand out. Is a fedora and thick black horn-rim eyeglasses the ideal way to be inconspicuous? Yes,if we're in 1960! Failure that I am at camouflage,I am a great success at being comfortable with myself. It took almost 40 years though....

Let's start a ball cap prevention line: 1-800-HELP HAT. Just call and one of our counselors will help you to not put the fedora down...

 

[carebear]

It is a bit of an adjustment, but you soon stop thinking about it... except when it blows off and you have to chase it down the street. There is just no cool way of doing that.

"There's nothing more ridiculous than a man chasing his hat."

-Tom Reagan, Miller's Crossing

 

[ga3ry]

If you haven't started wearing a hat in public by summer, start wearing a nice woven hat (for sun protection) and just naturally switch to a felt hat when the weather cools off.

Several of my father's friends always wore hats, one of them conspiciously (he was always changing, even at 90 he's a bit of a dandy), the other invisably (always the same brown hat). A lot of it has to do with your intention.

Get an old worn hat. People who don't know you will think you've worn it forever.

gary

 

[Choeki]

Confidence is a bit of a weird trait in my eyes. The cynical side of me says that all confidence is simply lying to one's self, but the optimist in me says that confidence is simply the by-product of genuine ability. However, in both cases it stems from a self-generated belief that can only be affected by people outside of your concept of self if you let them.

At the same time, the vast majority of the people who see you in public will probably never interact with you on more than a superficial level (if at all), so worrying about how they perceive is not much of a risk since it is unlikely that it really matters to them either way. However, if there is a certain persona you would like to project in public the way you dress and carry yourself is pretty much the only way to do so.

I've personally had a fairly mixed experience regarding my socialization, but being a professional teacher has really been a boon towards my personal confidence levels in public affairs regardless of what I wear or what occasion I happen to be a part of. This stems mainly from the daily abuse I get from students coupled with the inherent exhibitionary nature of teaching. Maintaining an unflappable bearing as well as knowing when to be dismissive of the opinions of others are two skills that I've managed to develop and have been very valuable in my current career path. Not to say that I haven't had any hiccoughs or missteps regarding those skills, but at least I can sleep easily at night... As long as I don't force my self to stay up to work on silly sewing projects. :eusa_doh:

 

[leo]

Last week a colleague at work and I were heading out into the cold. I put on a fedora and he donned a flat cap. It must have been five minutes later before I actually studied his hat. It was like a Kangol Leather Spitfire but with flipped up ear flap thingies. I thought the hat was the ugliest I'd seen in years. But no one, including me, had paid attention to it.

Last summer in a tourist spot I realized I had left my panama in the hotel room. At a shop, my wife bought me a Tilley hat, a brand I'd long admired. She insisted I wear it at the time but I felt like some goofy cartoon character when I stepped into the sun. Then I started to see a few Tilleys (and other brimmed) hats worn comfortably by others. Earlier in the day, people's hats did not even register in my brain.

Human psychology is an amazing thing.

Friends and family may make a few comments at first, but most people don't care what kind of hat you wear. The more you wear it, the less self-conscious you will become.

Bill

 

[Lucky Luke]

Confidence - yes. get a hat you like, with both style and class, wear it, and be sure that you feel strong. It won't be long and the compliments will come. Some friends may make a remark on your newfound style, but the public won't know better. With each compliment will come more confidence, and with in a few days you won't go outside without your cover.
Frequently, when I change hats I feel self conscious. It usually takes a compliment or two to get real comfortable. What really helps me is the comfort and fit. I find that when my lid fits well and keeps me warm or shades the sun that I am less concerned about how I look . Enjoy the fun!

 

[nulty]

I think this is something that anyone who dons an article of clothing that is "outside" the norm faces. Fedoras especially since they are considered a fashion accessory and subject to the scrutiny of those who judge the wearer as a person by the clothes they wear. Which is something I've always considered shallow and foolish.

Because fedoras are considered as being from a time in the long past as a necessary part of a fellows wardrobe I think we ask ourselves at times why we even bother with them. I know I have. The amount of Time Money and Energy that have gone into my hats over the years assuredly could have been put to use someplace else in my life.

But when I ask myself this question I always get the same answer. Wearing a fedora allows me to justify within my self the search for who I'm trying to be. Aside from it being just novelty or a hobby, it's a statement , a signpost if you will , that I'm saying to the world " There's something more under this hat and it's up to you to embrace it or walk away" I've always said that If you don't like what I say or do there's a stool at the other end of the bar you can go sit on....

In any event you've chosen an interesting path by wearing the Hat. Enjoy it and see where it takes you....and most of all have fun..

 

[pgoat]

Get an old worn hat. People who don't know you will think you've worn it forever.

gary

That's a good idea! When I decided I wanted a fedora a few years ago I went out and bought a beautiful new Biltmore Voyager from JJ hats. It was a striking hat with a tall crown and relatively wide brim - which took getting used to as I had only worn baseball caps for the prior decade - and the fact that it was so pristine and obviously new made it seem that much more unnatural and contrived. I thought the hat suited me, esp. worn with a suit to the office, but I felt very self-conscious!

A few weeks later I picked up a used Biltmore on ebay and although that hat was not to my liking once I recieved it, I felt more comfortable wearing it because it was 'broken in". I could wear it much more easily with casual clothes as well (it was more of a trilby than a fedora).

I'll buy a nice new hat Now, of course, but I don't have a problem wearing a fedora anymore. For newbies or people who need to build confidence, I second the recommendation to get a used hat for the lived in look. You'll also spend less while learning about what you want and need in a hat (I sold both Biltmores at a loss due to both hats being too big and the ebay purchase just being uglier than the auction pictures suggested).

 

[tinmanzzz]

Wear the Hat

Simple,
Wear the Hat don't let the Hat wear you..