Women without hats

[Matt Deckard]

Sometimes they are obnoxious or grand or make the woman look very spoiled. Sometimes pretty or frumpy or bored. I think more than the men, women take more time when looking for a hat as the variety is 20 times that of what a man has available and you can't wear yours with an undershirt like we can and look like your working.

For the ladies they are a fashion from head to tow and if the hat doesn't work the whole outfit is off.

Was a time women were keeping the hats alive. The 60's had their pillboxes. The 70's had their broad brims... the 80's is where the wobble began, and now you have to walk miles to see a beret.

So... Why don't you wear hats?

 

[Lady Blue]

I think that women in the 80s stopped wearing hats because of the introduction of big hair during that time. When they have 30 pounds of Aquanet saturated hair on top of their heads, they would not want a hat to smush what they spent hours working on. So women stopped wearing hats, and they began to dwindle in the stylish category. And perhaps since the hat wearing fell out of practice at that time, by the 90s and today women just lost touch with how to make an ensemble with a hat work and the desire to not "mess up their hair" became paramount.
Also somewhere in there developed a faux pas to wear hats indoors. When a woman is wearing a hat ensemble, it will not be desireable to have to take your hat off when you go inside. So they leave it off to begin with instead of risking dishevelment.

I don't have any historical evidence to back up my ideas. They are only musings from a casual observer who btw, loves hats and wears them all the time.

 

[Tough Cookie]

I adore the hat, and used to wear them to work and anywhere else, but I encountered an odd thing, in that I constantly had to tell people to not touch or remove my hat! And I work in a semi-professional office! Whether it was on my head or a hat rack, multitudes of men (I work in aerospace, far more men then women in the industry) would literally pluck the hat off, play with it like it was a toy--absolutely infuriating. And disrespectful.

Once I bit the heads off the offenders, it was still a bit of a game to them, even if they knew better than to handle the hats (and some of them never learned. One co-worker in particular I reamed so hard after refusing to honor my explicit and clear directions to refrain from touching my hat, that he never spoke to me again after that. Which was, now that I think about it, a bonus for me).

I guess it's a continuation of the high-school mentality where anything different is made a big deal of/punished. It's difficult enough to be taken seriously in my field when you are young (younger than the rest, anyways), female, and having no military background. I do dress nicely and with a decided vintage flair at work but hats are like a red flag to a bull sometimes, and I have other battles to fight.

I do wear hats when not at work, and when it's not too hot or windy out here in the Mojave Desert, which is rare.

But you know what? I just may push the hat wearing a little further now. Especially if you can find me replicas of Ingred Bergman's "Casablanca" hats...

Thanks for the lovely screen shot collage, by the way.

 

[Miss Match]

I don't understand why women don't wear hats. I wear one every day, and I constantly hear people say "Oh, I love your hat! I wish I could wear them, but I'm not a 'hat person.'"

This then makes me bash my head against a wall. There's approximately nine gazillion hat styles out there for women. Pill boxes, cloches, berets, sun hats. Hats with brims, hats with no brims. Felt hats, straw hat, fabric hats. Women can even wear men's styles. They are designed to work with your face shape, so ANYONE can be a hat person.

Nobody believes me!

 

[Matt Deckard]

just keep wearing yours and the flock will fallow.

 

[beaucaillou]

I haven't yet found a hat that is as flattering as I'd like. I wear glasses most of the time and I feel like a hat (or even jewelry near my face) is just *way too much* going on. Also, I have a gigantic head for a woman, so I've never found a vintage lid that fits me. There will come a day when I can afford to have some custom made that flatter and suit me, but the quality I want and the Milliner I like, would currently require me to commit some sort of illegal act to afford the right & proper hat.

 

[Sunny]

I think that women in the 80s stopped wearing hats because of the introduction of big hair during that time. When they have 30 pounds of Aquanet saturated hair on top of their heads, they would not want a hat to smush what they spent hours working on. So women stopped wearing hats, and they began to dwindle in the stylish category.

Well, 1980s hair was essentially a (poor) revival of mid-1940s hair. See some of the Andrews Sisters' later movies! The trick is that 1940s hats were shaped and worn (often more on the back of the head, with those curly bangs) so as not to interfere with a particular hairstyle. Matt succinctly described the degeneration of women's hats. By the 1980s, hats had lost whatever variety they'd had anyway.

I, like beaucaillou, have a gigantic head for a woman - 23 inches (7 1/4). I have a soft felt with a feather that's vaguely 1930s, but it's a bit snug and doesn't come down over my head like it ought. I also wear, in the winter and rain, a felt of my mothers from the mid/late 1970s. It has a very 1940s feel. But again, it doesn't fit - quite - right.

What I want is wide-brimmed summer hats to be more fashionable. The sun is FIERCE down here from June to October. Sunglasses simply don't cut it. It actually makes me long for my 1860s sunbonnet.

 

[Aaron Hats]

women take more time when looking for a hat as the variety is 20 times that of what a man has available

I'd have to disagree that women have more selection. For affordable ladies headwear you have Scala, Betmar and ?. For men, you have at least 5x that many brands to choose from.

Why don't more women wear hats? The same reason more men don't. I can't tell you how many times somebody walks in, picks a random hat, puts it on and says "See I don't look good in hats." My response good be anything from complete silence to "It would help if you at least tried on a hat in your size.".

The not so simple answer could be that we need more hat stores where people don't have to drive four hours to get to so that people can see the variety of headwear available today.

 

[Elaina]

I don't like hats, therefore I don't wear them.

I don't like the claustrophobic feel on my head, the heat from wearing one long term or most of the hat styles out there.

Not to be confused with not being a hat person. I can, do, and occasionally wear hats that are flattering to me, that I like. I wear them when I have to (like going to church), when I don't want to do my hair (like picking the boy from school, I have a 1920's replica ball cap) and to his soccer games (I have a cloche in the team colors, even those those aren't really flattering to the majority of people that wear them.) So, I wear them when I have to, really.

Before I start getting the thing of "there is a hat you'll like", I assure you there isn't. I've tried every style out there from bonnets and cowboy hats to pillboxes and peter pan hats and everything in between, and save for the old Victorian lids (which I can only get away with at goth clubs) I just don't like them. Period. I do enjoy looking at them, but I can't stand wearing them.

BTW, I DO own hats, and have a small collection of them I do wear. But they're worn ONLY while I have to have them on. They are, to me, like a bad pair of shoes: I want them off the moment I can get them off of me.

 

[texasgirl]

We've had unseasonably cold weather down in Texas lately. I adore hats and have been wearing them lately to work, on the train and/or bus. And almost everyday I've gotten compliments. Dillards has all of theirs on sale right now and I picked up 3 for $25 total. Just love hats, maybe we can bring them back!

 

[Barbigirl]

I have the opposite problem, I apparently have a pea brain because I cannot find a hat small enough. They all feel like it will fall off or blow off the second I make any quick move.

The hat I have on in the avatar was given to me by a dear friend. It was too small for him and I ended up padding the brim quite a lot to get it to stay on my head.

Sheepishly, I admit, I have never actually measured my head so I can't give you a number.

 

[Aaron Hats]

Sizing is another problem with women's headwear. About 99% of it is "one size fits most" which only works if you happen to be a size medium.

 

[Elaina]

I must be the most. I don't have a problem, vintage or new, getting them on my noggin.

I just got in the mail, a 1925 cloche pattern, that was way too small for a friend of mine.

 

[lindylady]

Sizing is another problem with women's headwear. About 99% of it is "one size fits most" which only works if you happen to be a size medium.

Yeah, that is annoying. Why do manufacturers assume that all women have the same hat size?

I like to wear hats in the summer, especially wide brimmed straw hats. They look lovely with a sundress and they keep you cool in the heat.

 

[LolitaHaze]

While I don't always wear hats, depending on how I am styling my hair, I do most of the time. In fact, I am going out to lunch today and plan on wearing a hat. My favourite one that I seem to wear all the dang time.

 

[Novella]

I love hats. I hardly ever wear them though, because I never feel like they match with what I'm wearing. I wear jeans most days, and find that when I put a hat on and look in the mirror, the hat looks too dressy or nice.

 

[WideBrimm]

I've always found it interesting that in general women continued to wear hats long after most men abandoned the habit - in church for example. How come?

 

[carebear]

Because their sultry tresses caused poor innocent men to think sinful thoughts.

 

[WideBrimm]

Sultry Tresses

Care Bear - You'd better not repeat what you're thinking. And me neither! :eusa_clap lol

 

[carebear]

I sir, am the very soul of modesty and respect for the fairer sex.

In fact, I hesitated to type sex just then. Oops, that makes twice. I better stop before I faint straight away from shame.