Where does the "ill-fitting ball cap with a suit" look originate from?

[Abraham]

Where does the "ill-fitting ball cap with a suit" look original from? We've all seen it hundreds of times at outdoor church events, graduations, upscale car shows, etc., etc.

A guy will be wearing either a fairly nice suit or a sports coat and a tie. Then laying on top of his his threadbare pate will be an ill-fitting crumpled ball cap.

At best it will be a Sierra Club, Whole Foods, BMW or a school he once attended cap. At worst it will be a Winston or Marlboro cap he picked-up cheap at the estate sale of a young neighbor. Either way the cap will be crumpled and sized to fit his 4 year old grandchild.

Where does this look originate from what why on Earth is it so prevalent? /rant off

 

[MisterCairo]

Where does this look originate from what why on Earth is it so prevalent?

Having been dropped as a baby?

 

[drcube01]

Some people (and I know people like that, but I can't explain them) don't realize there are other kinds of hats. To them, hat = baseball cap and baseball cap = hat. So if it's sunny out or they aren't having a good hair day, they'll wear a "hat", aka baseball cap, even to a wedding or funeral.

These days, you're lucky to even see this type of person in a suit at all. You sure it wasn't a black satin shirt and their least holey pair of jeans? You know, their Sunday best?

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Hell.

 

[Edward]

So few people wear hats at all nowadays, the utilitarian wool beanie in Winter and ballcap in Summer thing seems to be what they reach for if they have no other hat. I agree it looks incongruous.

 

[Hal]

So few people wear hats at all nowadays, the utilitarian wool beanie in Winter and ballcap in Summer thing seems to be what they reach for if they have no other hat. I agree it looks incongruous.

Actually, Edward, there seems to be an increasing number of men wearing headgear - but it's nearly all of the baseball-cap or beanie type. As you say, utilitarian - and to many of us unattractive.

 

[Abraham]

I agree that far more males wear head coverings here in California than in decades past. Looking at outdoor photos from the 1940's and 1950's, most adult males wore hats and the younger ones more caps. In the 1960's, 1970's, 1980's and 1990's, very few wore any head coverings at all.

Today MANY wear ball caps and to a far lesser degree beanies. They also wear "hoodies" a lot.

How times change...

 

[Dirk Wainscotting]

I know this thread relates to the U.S. but here in Europe you see quite a lot of real hats and they've increased in number over the last decade. Aside from the hat aficionados there are a lot of men wearing hats during winter. Most of these men are over thirty and the hats tend to look more like this:

Rather than the classic fedora.

In summer 'straw' hats abound. I'd say the number of hats has massively increased in comparison to the decline in the 1980s/1990s. Baseball caps have less popularity here.

 

[stratcat]

Actually, Edward, there seems to be an increasing number of men wearing headgear - but it's nearly all of the baseball-cap or beanie type. As you say, utilitarian - and to many of us unattractive.

As in so many things, I totally agree with you.

I know this thread relates to the U.S. but here in Europe you see quite a lot of real hats and they've increased in number over the last decade. Aside from the hat aficionados there are a lot of men wearing hats during winter. Most of these men are over thirty and the hats tend to look more like this:

Rather than the classic fedora.

In summer 'straw' hats abound. I'd say the number of hats has massively increased in comparison to the decline in the 1980s/1990s. Baseball caps have less popularity here.

At first I thought it was me becoming more aware of people wearing hats because I was 'in the club' but I don't think that is correct. There are many people wearing hats on a daily basis in all types of weather.

I think people wear the hats posted above basically because that is pretty much all that is easily available. There is a market stall in town that sells lots of different type of hats, caps, beanies, you name it he's got it. All except a traditionally town style trilby/fedora with a bow.

 

[Abraham]

I know this thread relates to the U.S. but here in Europe you see quite a lot of real hats and they've increased in number over the last decade. Aside from the hat aficionados there are a lot of men wearing hats during winter. Most of these men are over thirty and the hats tend to look more like this:
Rather than the classic fedora.

In summer 'straw' hats abound. I'd say the number of hats has massively increased in comparison to the decline in the 1980s/1990s. Baseball caps have less popularity here.

I wear hats for protection from the sun and for warmth. I try to wear hats that don't make me look like: a fool, a bumpkin, a pretender, a wannabe, etc.

I think the sort of hat you noted above (along with Irish tweed "walking hats" and the like) is fairly "neutral" -- the sort of "outback" hat that tells others it's being worn for warmth and/or shade and not simply for an affection. The sort of hat that simply doesn't raise the questions that a trilby, fedora, bowler or homburg would.

I have always wondered what sort of hats men have worn to work in colder climates over the past 40+ years? I suspect they're largely flat caps, walking hats, outback hats and beanies...

 

[Dirk Wainscotting]

I wear a flat cap every day when cycling to and from work; except summer when I use a straw hat.

 

[Hal]

Where does the "ill-fitting ball cap with a suit" look original from?... We've all seen it hundreds of times at outdoor church events, graduations, upscale car shows, etc., etc.
A guy will be wearing either a fairly nice suit or a sports coat and a tie. Then laying on top of his his threadbare pate will be an ill-fitting crumpled ball cap.
Where does this look originate from what why on Earth is it so prevalent? /rant off

So far in this thread various practical possible reasons have been put forward. But the sheer aesthetic incongruity surely jars? Baseball caps sprouted here in the 1990s, a time when jumbled styles also came in. Do people now really believe that anything goes with anything, or can't most of them be bothered? Or are they are still fighting the battle of the 1960s, regarding anything classical/traditional as a symbol of old-fashionedness and reactionary views?

 

[Edward]

Hal, I think there is an element of still fighting the sixties culture wars (laughable, as by this point we're the real rebels.... and therein you have the origins of Chappism and the Anarcho-Dandy movement...). Not helped by the recent parliamentary exchange, which seems to reflect a strong asociation of the suit and tie with establishment mentality and such.

With the baseball cap and suit thing, I think it really is, however, often a case of folks just not thinking there are other options. Maybe there's a plus side, though. After so many years of hats seemingly dying out, we're starting to see more of them around. What if these baseball caps, ugly as they might be, are an early, evolutionary stage of hats coming back in, making the notion of headwear something of which people are conscious? That could be an early stage of a hat revival...

 

[Hal]

Hal, I think there is an element of still fighting the sixties culture wars (laughable, as by this point we're the real rebels...Not helped by the recent parliamentary exchange, which seems to reflect a strong association of the suit and tie with establishment mentality and such.

The anti-tie representative is, of course, of the babyboom/hippie/student-radical generation.

Maybe there's a plus side, though. After so many years of hats seemingly dying out, we're starting to see more of them around. What if these baseball caps, ugly as they might be, are an early, evolutionary stage of hats coming back in, making the notion of headwear something of which people are conscious? That could be an early stage of a hat revival...

I think you're right here; while never wearing one myself, I gave a cautious welcome to the baseball cap in the 1990s for the reason you mention.

 

[Dirk Wainscotting]

Not helped by the recent parliamentary exchange, which seems to reflect a strong asociation of the suit and tie with establishment mentality and such.

The thing is, the well-known 'yoof' retailers sell shed-loads of suits to young people; though it matters what your definition of 'suit' is. Trousers rolled up and worn with tennis shoes; braces attached, yet hanging down at the back so, perversely, the trousers end up supporting the braces rather than vice-versa; t-shirt or stripey top under the jacket. This is the new take on the suit through the prism of high-street fashion.

This is worn by the young and also the suspiciously not-so-young, who are seemingly terrified of being seen as old and uncool and so plump for dressing like a pretentious TV interior designer.

In some ways the humble ball cap is preferable to all that.

 

[Edward]

It never ceases to amaze me just how far people will conform to the arbitrary diktat of fashion, just so they can be "individual"...

 

[GHT]

Maybe there's a plus side, though. After so many years of hats seemingly dying out, we're starting to see more of them around. What if these baseball caps, ugly as they might be, are an early, evolutionary stage of hats coming back in, making the notion of headwear something of which people are conscious?

Don't hold your breath, they haven't learned to wear the cap the right way round yet!