Why Did We Stop Wearing Hats?

should we bring hats back? what do you think?
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[kurtjk]

Can we talk capes? I want capes to make a comeback. Dracula wouldn't be nearly as cool without a cape.

[archer]

My Grandpa once told me that he stopped wearing hats regularly in the mid 60’s because car roofs got so low, he had to take them off every time he got in and out of one and it became an inconvenience. I doubt he was the only one who felt that way.

[SimpleDesertRose]

I used to have a straw hat that was just perfect for the summer. I wore it everywhere. I even bought a hat pin from a lady at the local farmer's market. It did an amazing job at keeping my hat from flying away whenever the wind picked up. That is until I wore it to the beach and a really strong wind blew my much beloved straw hat off my head straight out into the Pacific Ocean while leaving me with the hat pin still attached to my head. I searched in vain for another hat like it, to no avail. I hope the mermaids are enjoying my hat.

[Kardia_of_Rhodes]

One big point of "looking cool" is your ability to stand out in a crowd. If no one wears hats anymore, then I'd say wearing one makes you cool.

[samanthahurst]

as a very pale person who burns easily, I finally got the courage to buy and wear a wide brimmed hat this summer and now I am never going back

[pay]

Wearing a hella wide hat is just proper social distancing at this point.

[donquijotedegranada]

so interesting, actually, in spain "las sinsombrero" (the hatless ladies) were a group of rebel poets, independent strong women who refused to wear a hat in the mid 1920's as a symbol of incorformity and modernity

[annapruitt]

My mom hosted a ladies luncheon a few years ago with the invitation asking everyone to wear a fun hat! It was really cute they all wore fancy hats they’ve always wanted to try wearing!

[mathewhale]

When WWII ended, everyone threw their hats in the air and couldn’t find them again.

No more hats

[BunsBooks]

“The point of fashion wasn’t to be elegant anymore, it was to be cool”

I pledge to do my part in bringing back elegant stately matron vibes

and hats

[magpie]

Karolina: Imagine a 16 year old wearing a hat
School dresscode: not on my watch



(Edit: so anyone wondering, I’m at an American school, and it’s so the staff can easily identify you as a student apart from a school shooter)

Edit-edit: most of the comments are pretty cool and I thought they deserved to be here as well; Mallory Rivers brought up a great point about how they’ve been banned since she was in school a while back and the justification was how hats can be used for gang identification. This makes sense as hats had been banned long before school shooting were relatively common (≈90s). In elementary school (ages 5-11), I remember the reasoning as head lice.

Another asks if this comment was satire, but unfortunately not. Tying into above, my school definitely cites this as the reason as it had been shot up three years ago by a former student. And we had had a different school shooting in our county a couple decades back.

[janehitchmough]

I’m in Australia and pale. I wear a hat outside every day, nobody comments. In fact our primary schools have a “no hat, no play rule” for play and lunch times. Sunscreen available to all children at school. Just makes sense.

[jallenecs]

I lost my hair to sickness, and I started making my own hats because I was SICK TO DEATH of chemo caps. They're booooring! I started a mini-trend at my church thanks to my fondness for cloche hats (a style that covers my entire head, and yet looks a little better than a scarf). Now we have several young ladies wearing hats regularly.

[artnessbylinnea]

"Imagine a 16-year old boy wearing a fedora to school"
*immediately gets early 2010's flashbacks*
Pretty sure my prom date wore a pinstripe fedora to prom.

[thomasjones]

There’s a lovely scene in John Buchan’s ‘The 39 Steps’ (1915) where, due to an altercation and a quick escape, he is forced to walk through a town without a hat. He is worried the police will stop him; not because he’s committed a crime, simply because being outside without a hat is suspicious. Almost impossible for a modern reader to understand this.

[butterqueeen]

My school literally has a rule against headwear because they say it is “disrespectful”.
It’s really stupid.

[choedzin]

When I was a kid in 1950s America, my father always wore a hat outside during the cooler months, and my mother wore one when she got dressed up. But as I recall, that more or less stopped as the 60s progressed. I myself have rarely been outside without a hat or cap for the past 40 years or so. I recently even had the great good fortune to find a felt fedora with ear flaps for cold weather.

[spazzyshortgirl]

So I have another theory: the end of hats coincided with the advent of tan=attractive in western culture. In the mid 1870, working women wore bonnets because paleness was hottest despite working in the Midwest American sun, in part because rich fashionable ladies never had to work outside. Then by the 1970s the “Malibu Barbie” coincided the advent of blue-collar work moving inside (call centers, typists, etc), and tanning had the connotation of having time to lay about by the pool. We made the purpose of hats more redundant.

That said, I love hats.

[jenniferwoods]

I love hats. When I was 16, my parents came home from an estate sale with 10 grocery bags of vintage hats, and the whole lot cost them only $10. They gave them all to me. It was the best day ever. I stopped wearing them so much as an adult. First of all, I live in a hot place, but secondly, every time I wore one of my gorgeous little pillboxes or tiny 1940s/1950s hats that perched at an angle on the side of my head, people would ask me when I was serving drinks, and when the flight would land. By the 1990s, basically the only people still wearing smart little hats were flight attendants. I miss my hats, but have grown used to dressing simply. The world is a more boring place for our turning away from hats, and other sharp accessories.

[lizzie]

My great aunt was a milliner. She could tell you what hat suited your proportions and face shape. She would adjust the size of the ribbon or brim to change the shape to be more flattering. Trying to buy a hat is really hit or miss without a pro to help you. People used to have better posture too. Their necks were longer looking because their shoulders were not up to their years.