A gentleman wears a hat. A baseball cap is not a hat, guys. It’s a piece of sporting equipment (you’re welcome to wear your baseball cap anywhere it’s appropriate to wear your jockstrap). Leave the baseball cap in the locker room. The ubiquitous scally cap (and its bastard child, the Kangol) is a hat – but it makes anyone who wears it look like a golf caddy or newboy. Sorry, Samuel L. Jackson, but it’s true.
As much as we loved Superman, the sartorial splendor of George Reeves’ building-leaping, bar-bending Man of Steel couldn’t match that of his Clark Kent. While Superman always looked kind of dumpy in his ill-fitting union suit, Clark looked like a million bucks in a grey flannel suit, crisp white shirt, and a hat. Oh... the hat.
There are a lot of different hats for men. There’s “The Homburg” “The Porkpie”, beloved of jazz musicians, “The Bowler”, popular with Englishmen, and “The High Hat” – just to name a few. But the most famous and stylish of all hats is “The Fedora”. It’s the quintessential men’s hat.
More on the Fedora, why you need one, and where to get one after the jump! Post contributed by Ol' Scratch, producer for The Boston Babydolls. Image of the "King of All Hats" from Wikipedia.
Although The Fedora first appeared in the mid-1800s on the head of a fictional princess, its most associated with men in the 1940s. This is the hat that slopes so seductively over the brows of both Tommy gun-toting gangsters and the private detectives who take them down.
Usually made of wool, a good fedora is pretty much indestructible. Designed to be crushed, rolled up, and then patted back into shape, the wool also has a natural water resistance that allows you to wear your fedora in a light rain without fear of it being destroyed. Sometimes the hat is called a “snap brim fedora,” because you can ‘snap’ the back brim up or down, depending on whether you’re feeling dressy or casual.
This versatile hat can be worn with different styles of crease (or “bash”). Grabbing the crown of the hat about an inch above the hat band and giving it a squeeze creates a ‘tear drop fedora’ (if you look at the hat from above, you’ll see why), while creasing it evenly on both sides of the head is called a ‘Cattleman Crease Fedora’ because the look is reminiscent of a cowboy hat.
Men’s hat shops – or ‘haberdasheries– are a dying breed, and Boston is sadly lacking in decent hat shops. If you’re looking for a classic fedora, your choices are pretty much limited to:
Bobby from Boston 19 Thayer St, Boston, MA 02118, (617) 423-9299
Gumshoe 40 South St, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130, (617) 522-5066
Salmagundi 765 Centre St, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130, (617) 522-5047
Toppers, 151 Tremont St Boston, MA 02111, (617) 859-1430
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