I'm surprised at the lack of discussion around the correlation between the decline of the hat and conformity and formality of appearance in general.
Prior to the 1950s, most men dressed in a uniform fashion. Your appearance might vary depending on your class, but within social classes, one man looked pretty much the same as the next. A neatly trimmed haircut and a suit were standard everyday wear, and a hat to go with it.
After WWII, the 1950s saw the invention of the teenager. Youth culture was more prominent than ever before, thanks to many factors, both social and technological. As those teenagers entered the workforce, they were filled with new ideas about individuality and style. Along with the Baby Boomers ideas about style also came changing ideas about hats.
The change didn't come overnight, of course, but by the time JFK became president in 1961, you could see a definite trend away from hats and suits and every man's hair cut well above the collar. It would take another decade or more for hats to really fade out, more or less along with the decline of suits in general.
Watch for the crowd scenes in Manhattan at the beginning. You'll see a lot of hats, just not as many as you would have seen on the street ten years earlier, but far more than you'd see in a crowd scene from the same area in 1977.
There was no single cause for the decline in men's hats, and it didn't happen all at once. Stories like "it was Ike with the interstates" are appealing and make good cocktail party conversation (although I suppose the cocktail party died along with the hat, now that I think of it), but reality is usually not that discreet and simple.
Clothing used to be really expensive. Studies of retail pricing indicate that, after correcting for inflation, a good pair of workmans' trousers -- jeans, in other words -- would have cost the equivalent of roughly $400 in 2001 dollars in 1901. A reasonable quality man's suit would have cost the equivalent of $2-3000. Clothing (and food) accounted for a much higher percentage of household budgets than they do today. Women's attire was similarly expensive. Prior to the 20th century, poorer working people had to make do with second and third hand garments and patch them until they fell apart; even in the 20th century, being able to afford new clothing on an annual basis was seen as a luxury.
There are a couple of corollaries of this. One is that fashions were far more conventional, than they are today -- you didn't want to pay the equivalent of a modern automobile's price for an outfit that would be seen as weird or outlandish within 1-2 years. Another is that they were much slower to change because people needed to get their full value out of such an expensive asset.
In fact, if you look at automotive fashion today, you see much the same constraints. Cars are expensive enough that sensible people don't generally change their vehicle every year; they get some miles out of them, and they tend to buy vehicles on the basis of perceived utility. Which is why the boring silver saloon or SUV is more common than the bright pink, retro-styled sports convertible, or the monster truck with jacked-up suspension and six foot diameter tires.
As I recall, one got more headroom in the cars of that day. (Even if you weren't, like me, a little kid.)
An interesting point about the uniform fashion. A few years ago, The Washington Post Sunday magazine carried an article about the civil-rights era riots in Cambridge, Maryland, ca. 1965. Everyone was dressed alike--the local men and the out-of-town students, all wore white shirts, dark trousers, and leather shoes.
My 96 year old dad says it was definitely JFK's influence. What JFK did was bring about a change in American men's fashion.
Then why did the change occur world wide where mass transport was still the major transportation source?
One word: Hollywood. If you check out the movies of the time in an eighteen month period men stopped wearing hats. Those American movies spread the fashion change world wide. Sorry, but Eisenhower had nothing to do with it.
Since you bring up Hollywood, there is another theory that might help explain it.
With the rise of movies then TV, you had more people seeing men on screen without hats. Why? Because it's difficult to properly light a man's face while he is wearing a hat. The lights must be somewhat above the actors, so a hat causes a shadow across his face. If you want to see the man's face, then he can't wear a hat on camera. So, once you have the trend setters removing hats, then people get more used to the idea of seeing a man's head sans chapeau. News anchors still dress nicely in suits, so they would still be somewhat formal, even without the hat.
If this were the case, it would probably start to show the decline of hats earlier than the rise of automobiles, in the 1930's or so, so this theory could be tested separately from the rise of the automobile.
This would seem to imply that non-US countries should show a decline in hats usage during/after kennedy's mandate (plus a couple years to spread movies).
I doubt this is the case: if you look at non US cinematography, hats had been strongly in decline already in movies from the 50s', and from a few mass events' pics I can google it seems hats were still common but not overwhelmingly so.
Just saying "JFK did it" isn't an answer; I mean, why did JFK suddenly decide it was acceptable for a President of the United States to stroll around hatless? Something must have created the conditions that led to that being an acceptable decision for a politician looking for re-election; the hat was already on its way out among men of Kennedy's age at that time.
If Barack Obama decided tomorrow to stop wearing pants, would this become a new trend? Or would we be very quickly getting used to the words "President Biden"? The time is not ripe for Presidents to stop wearing pants.
On the other hand, Obama has frequently been photographed with a suit and no tie; as far as I know he's the first President to attempt that look. But it's been a fairly common look among youngish men for well over a decade.
One of the weirdest things I noticed about the military was the hat fetish -- all the rules about when a hat could or could not be worn (basically, all the times outdoor it was mandatory, except in certain uniforms; indoors, only if you were "under arms", which is distinct from just being armed), the fight over whether an elite (Ranger) black beret would get used by everyone, "no hat" zones outdoors (no hat/no salute areas where officers were in high density, and also in places where hats could be blown off and into critical equipment, like near aircraft), fights over whether an authorized hat (the boonie hat) would be authorized on specific bases, etc.
Outside of occupational hats (hard hats, etc.), the military is probably the last real holdout of hat use in the US.
Those rules are not arbitrary. They're based on training soldiers to wear protective headgear without thinking. The hat requirement outdoors is because it's designed to create an innate awareness that will protect you in a combat zone. You never ever leave cover without your Kevlar helmet in a combat zone. The 'hat' is a representation of that protective headgear. The rules are designed to instill discipline that could keep you alive in a war zone. It certainly isn't rooted in fashion. Like nearly all military traditions and procedures, hat rules are there for a reason even though it may appear arbitrary to those who have never served.
Finnish military has also this kind of weird "no hat while eating", which comes from Finnish civilian tradition. The only exception is below -20 Celsius temperature.
At least in my country it's been tradition to take your hat of inside, because it's disrespectful to the house owner. Like a statement that your roof is leaking. Nowadays this culture has faded, but personally I don't like to wear a hat partly because of this.
Outside of occupational hats (hard hats, etc.), the military is probably the last real holdout of hat use in the US.
I would say the ball cap is pretty common among farmers. Suppliers hand out their branded hats like candy. Not to mention baseball players themselves, who pretty much also wear the style of hat while in a professional setting.
I recall a commentary on a stargate episode where they commented that the USAF was always upset if any of the actors didn't follow the rules about hats to the letter.
Just as important, I'd add that about the time that hats stopped being fashionable, the suit, as the regular wear of men in most occupations most of the time, started to end.
I still find it odd to see old pictures from a century ago with everybody wearing jackets, vest and ties everywhere, even in some labor jobs (at least vests)!
There was plenty of driving before the interstates. In the unlikely event this explanation is correct, it should be easy to test: compare the graphs of car and hat sales.
The driving before the interstates happened on dirt roads, country roads, or paved roads in crowded city thoroughfares, with top speeds of less than thirty miles an hour. Automobiles in the '20's sat tall, with lots of interior room (even the low-end Model T had plenty of vertical space); sedans in the thirties began the trend towards lower profiles which continued up through the sporty road cruisers of the fifties. Those sleeker, lower profile designs would have been pointless without highways.
I don't think it's an entirely unlikely explanation.
Nice analysis. I love this kind of analysis of social phenomenon. But I will add that not only do cars make hats inconvenient they also make them less necessary. You spend less time standing around or walking around outside when you drive, especially if you have a garage. So you spend less time exposed to the elements, like sun, wind and cold. I will suggest this might help explain why hats were less common for women: They were more likely to be homemakers or do "pink collar" jobs. So they probably generally spent less time outdoors than men.
We still have men who wear hats at work but we typically don't mistakenly think of it as a fashion choice because they tend to be hard hats or otherwise clearly utilitarian. Much of what we view as mere fashion has either a utilitarian purpose or a utilitarian origin that has since been forgotten.
If you're interested in this story, there's an excellent book on the subject titled Hatless Jack: the President, the Fedora, and the Death of the Hat (http://www.amazon.com/Hatless-Jack-Neil-Steinberg/dp/1862077...) that investigates the death of the hat as a mandatory fashion accessory for American men in much more detail. Highly recommended.
"Hats" are still going strong here in Bahrain. To me, the clothing is one of the most visually interesting aspects of my visit. All the women wear the long black dresses and black head scarves and all the men wear long white dresses and either white or red+white head scarves. (Abayas and hijabs for the women, thobes and ghutras for the men).
It makes sense since it's sooooo bright. As I've walked around here for the last month I've really wanted to have the light full-body garment they have and the head wrap to keep off the sun, but I'm afraid it might be weird/disrespectful to wear it.
"A hat should be removed upon greeting a woman, and remain off for the rest of one's life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat".
I'm only half kidding. Hats were probably more functional when bathing was less frequent. Unless you spend a lot of time in the bright sunlight or out in the cold, today there is little reason to wear one so now they just look silly.
Unless you spend a lot of time in the bright sunlight or out in the cold, today there is little reason to wear one so now they just look silly.
I kind of agree; some people look good in some hats, mostly though people look best in hats when the hat is serving some specific function.
OTOH, I know a few people, and see quite a few more, who wear hats all the time. Know a guy who was married in a hat. Know a guy who wears a wool cap no matter how hot it is.
I assume this is just some cultural difference, though I'd be interested in hearing from any all-the-time hat wearers how they came to decide this was a good thing.
C'mon. PJ O'Rourke? Is that supposed to be some sly, postmodern reference to retrograde '80s culture or just a Yuppie twitch? If that guy had his way, Reagan would still be president, Alzheimer's and death be damned. PJ O'Rourke should probably be the last person on earth you consult for fashion advice, short of the Pope, whose bathing habits aren't available to us mere mortals, but who has at least one die-hard fan left...
In all seriousness, hats are great; like anything else, they'll see a comeback when the pendulum swings the other way. I smoke a pipe and shave with a straightrazor, when I don't have a beard (which is most of the time). I think I'll buy myself a good hat one of these days just to bring it back and prove old PJ wrong.
A similar trend is visible in India too. Headgear(type varying by the region) was quiet an essential part of the dressing. There are parts where a lot of men still wear headgear (rural Maharashtra for example). But it is gone from majority of population.
Given that we neither had a switch to private vehicles in 50s nor JFK, there has to be a more globally applicable explanation for this!
Oddly enough, I think that men's hats may be making a resurgence among the younger generations. Granted I don't have solid data to back this up, besides a lot of people who I have seen on campus (myself included) regularly wearing hats. Many of these are black fedoras, so Notch may be slightly responsible.
I have seen a similar phenomena. I assure you that none of these people have seen a picture of Notch.
The fedora/trilby/etc could be better said to have simply never gone completely out of style. It's popularity just seems to ebb and flow like the tide.
I think it's due to less time spent outdoors in general, particularly less time on long outdoor walks. If you're exposed to the elements for a long time on a hot day, or a cold one, a hat definitely helps. So as we spend more time indoors, or in climate-controlled vehicles, we have less need for them.
Lots of hair and hats don't go - the hat feels wrong, wears wrong. If your hair length fluctuates your hat size changes. A hat that fit you last month no longer fits right.
Keep your hair habitually short, and hat wearing is more practical, and comfortable.
My dad was a young man when he fought in WWII. Looking at photos of him after he left the service in 1946, he never wore a hat. And looking at his friends in the photos, most of them aren't wearing hats either.
I wonder if the reason JFK didn't wear a hat was... many individuals of his generation didn't particularly care for them. JFK was the first individual of that generation elected to the presidency.
Which doesn't necessarily mean JFK had no influence. But I wonder whether it was part of a bigger pattern.
Obviously can't prove anything from an anecdote, and I'm not sure where you'd get the marketing data to do more... but it would seem that if younger men did resist buying hats, retailers at some level would probably have known.
Team Fortress 2 of course. Think about it: it's set in the mid-1960s. Clearly enough the world's hat were diverted to the Teufort area that prices elsewhere went up enough to make wearing hats an unattractive proposition.
[+] [-] jaysonelliot|14 years ago|reply
Prior to the 1950s, most men dressed in a uniform fashion. Your appearance might vary depending on your class, but within social classes, one man looked pretty much the same as the next. A neatly trimmed haircut and a suit were standard everyday wear, and a hat to go with it.
After WWII, the 1950s saw the invention of the teenager. Youth culture was more prominent than ever before, thanks to many factors, both social and technological. As those teenagers entered the workforce, they were filled with new ideas about individuality and style. Along with the Baby Boomers ideas about style also came changing ideas about hats.
The change didn't come overnight, of course, but by the time JFK became president in 1961, you could see a definite trend away from hats and suits and every man's hair cut well above the collar. It would take another decade or more for hats to really fade out, more or less along with the decline of suits in general.
Take a look at this film from 1967, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJgaaAfhR5I
Watch for the crowd scenes in Manhattan at the beginning. You'll see a lot of hats, just not as many as you would have seen on the street ten years earlier, but far more than you'd see in a crowd scene from the same area in 1977.
There was no single cause for the decline in men's hats, and it didn't happen all at once. Stories like "it was Ike with the interstates" are appealing and make good cocktail party conversation (although I suppose the cocktail party died along with the hat, now that I think of it), but reality is usually not that discreet and simple.
[+] [-] cstross|14 years ago|reply
Clothing used to be really expensive. Studies of retail pricing indicate that, after correcting for inflation, a good pair of workmans' trousers -- jeans, in other words -- would have cost the equivalent of roughly $400 in 2001 dollars in 1901. A reasonable quality man's suit would have cost the equivalent of $2-3000. Clothing (and food) accounted for a much higher percentage of household budgets than they do today. Women's attire was similarly expensive. Prior to the 20th century, poorer working people had to make do with second and third hand garments and patch them until they fell apart; even in the 20th century, being able to afford new clothing on an annual basis was seen as a luxury.
There are a couple of corollaries of this. One is that fashions were far more conventional, than they are today -- you didn't want to pay the equivalent of a modern automobile's price for an outfit that would be seen as weird or outlandish within 1-2 years. Another is that they were much slower to change because people needed to get their full value out of such an expensive asset.
In fact, if you look at automotive fashion today, you see much the same constraints. Cars are expensive enough that sensible people don't generally change their vehicle every year; they get some miles out of them, and they tend to buy vehicles on the basis of perceived utility. Which is why the boring silver saloon or SUV is more common than the bright pink, retro-styled sports convertible, or the monster truck with jacked-up suspension and six foot diameter tires.
[+] [-] diminish|14 years ago|reply
Watches? I am not wearing any since I started to carry phones.
[+] [-] olavk|14 years ago|reply
Elvis Presleys hairstyle was iconic. He couldn't wear a hat like eg. Frank Sinatra did.
[+] [-] cafard|14 years ago|reply
An interesting point about the uniform fashion. A few years ago, The Washington Post Sunday magazine carried an article about the civil-rights era riots in Cambridge, Maryland, ca. 1965. Everyone was dressed alike--the local men and the out-of-town students, all wore white shirts, dark trousers, and leather shoes.
[+] [-] derleth|14 years ago|reply
The 1920s, in fact; that's when the word was coined, and that's when a lot of the culture developed.
[+] [-] rmason|14 years ago|reply
Then why did the change occur world wide where mass transport was still the major transportation source?
One word: Hollywood. If you check out the movies of the time in an eighteen month period men stopped wearing hats. Those American movies spread the fashion change world wide. Sorry, but Eisenhower had nothing to do with it.
[+] [-] mbreese|14 years ago|reply
With the rise of movies then TV, you had more people seeing men on screen without hats. Why? Because it's difficult to properly light a man's face while he is wearing a hat. The lights must be somewhat above the actors, so a hat causes a shadow across his face. If you want to see the man's face, then he can't wear a hat on camera. So, once you have the trend setters removing hats, then people get more used to the idea of seeing a man's head sans chapeau. News anchors still dress nicely in suits, so they would still be somewhat formal, even without the hat.
If this were the case, it would probably start to show the decline of hats earlier than the rise of automobiles, in the 1930's or so, so this theory could be tested separately from the rise of the automobile.
[+] [-] riffraff|14 years ago|reply
I doubt this is the case: if you look at non US cinematography, hats had been strongly in decline already in movies from the 50s', and from a few mass events' pics I can google it seems hats were still common but not overwhelmingly so.
[1] http://www.cgilmugello.it/pagine/archfoto.html
[+] [-] planetguy|14 years ago|reply
If Barack Obama decided tomorrow to stop wearing pants, would this become a new trend? Or would we be very quickly getting used to the words "President Biden"? The time is not ripe for Presidents to stop wearing pants.
On the other hand, Obama has frequently been photographed with a suit and no tie; as far as I know he's the first President to attempt that look. But it's been a fairly common look among youngish men for well over a decade.
[+] [-] rdl|14 years ago|reply
Outside of occupational hats (hard hats, etc.), the military is probably the last real holdout of hat use in the US.
[+] [-] briandear|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nosse|14 years ago|reply
At least in my country it's been tradition to take your hat of inside, because it's disrespectful to the house owner. Like a statement that your roof is leaking. Nowadays this culture has faded, but personally I don't like to wear a hat partly because of this.
[+] [-] randomdata|14 years ago|reply
I would say the ball cap is pretty common among farmers. Suppliers hand out their branded hats like candy. Not to mention baseball players themselves, who pretty much also wear the style of hat while in a professional setting.
[+] [-] mjwalshe|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bane|14 years ago|reply
I still find it odd to see old pictures from a century ago with everybody wearing jackets, vest and ties everywhere, even in some labor jobs (at least vests)!
e.g. hunters http://www.huntersgardenassociation.com/1900%20thru%201948.h...
miners http://japanfocus.org/data/j.miners.1900.gif
mechanics http://users.senet.com.au/~mitchell/lewis/cars/html/car1.htm
boxing http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/english/on-line-exhibits/sport...
[+] [-] pg|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inconditus|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bane|14 years ago|reply
As hat wearing went down car sales went up?
[+] [-] thaumaturgy|14 years ago|reply
I don't think it's an entirely unlikely explanation.
[+] [-] radarsat1|14 years ago|reply
It would provide evidence, however.
[+] [-] franze|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] drx|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcb|14 years ago|reply
Everyone i know in design and marketing everyone blabs about how lack of marketing killed hats.
But no one i know also happens to have breakfast talks everyday with a anthropologist phd studying fashion.
[+] [-] benihana|14 years ago|reply
[1] http://mta.info/nyct/facts/ridership/index.htm
[+] [-] mike_esspe|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] defdac|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mz|14 years ago|reply
We still have men who wear hats at work but we typically don't mistakenly think of it as a fashion choice because they tend to be hard hats or otherwise clearly utilitarian. Much of what we view as mere fashion has either a utilitarian purpose or a utilitarian origin that has since been forgotten.
[+] [-] smacktoward|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] untog|14 years ago|reply
Don't me wrong, I like a good hat. But there are less exciting reasons why people stopped wearing them.
[+] [-] tveita|14 years ago|reply
http://www.snopes.com/history/american/jfkhat.asp
Contrary to myth, JFK wore his hat prominently during his inauguration.
[+] [-] losvedir|14 years ago|reply
It makes sense since it's sooooo bright. As I've walked around here for the last month I've really wanted to have the light full-body garment they have and the head wrap to keep off the sun, but I'm afraid it might be weird/disrespectful to wear it.
[+] [-] Semiapies|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WalterBright|14 years ago|reply
I've since discovered that a wide brimmed hat makes walking in the Seattle rain quite pleasant.
[+] [-] paulsutter|14 years ago|reply
"A hat should be removed upon greeting a woman, and remain off for the rest of one's life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat".
I'm only half kidding. Hats were probably more functional when bathing was less frequent. Unless you spend a lot of time in the bright sunlight or out in the cold, today there is little reason to wear one so now they just look silly.
[+] [-] jamesbritt|14 years ago|reply
I kind of agree; some people look good in some hats, mostly though people look best in hats when the hat is serving some specific function.
OTOH, I know a few people, and see quite a few more, who wear hats all the time. Know a guy who was married in a hat. Know a guy who wears a wool cap no matter how hot it is.
I assume this is just some cultural difference, though I'd be interested in hearing from any all-the-time hat wearers how they came to decide this was a good thing.
[+] [-] sopooneo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Drbble|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noduerme|14 years ago|reply
In all seriousness, hats are great; like anything else, they'll see a comeback when the pendulum swings the other way. I smoke a pipe and shave with a straightrazor, when I don't have a beard (which is most of the time). I think I'll buy myself a good hat one of these days just to bring it back and prove old PJ wrong.
[+] [-] abhaga|14 years ago|reply
Given that we neither had a switch to private vehicles in 50s nor JFK, there has to be a more globally applicable explanation for this!
[+] [-] nsns|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LeafStorm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unimpressive|14 years ago|reply
I have seen a similar phenomena. I assure you that none of these people have seen a picture of Notch.
The fedora/trilby/etc could be better said to have simply never gone completely out of style. It's popularity just seems to ebb and flow like the tide.
[+] [-] officemonkey|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raldi|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joelbirchler|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdunbar|14 years ago|reply
Lots of hair and hats don't go - the hat feels wrong, wears wrong. If your hair length fluctuates your hat size changes. A hat that fit you last month no longer fits right.
Keep your hair habitually short, and hat wearing is more practical, and comfortable.
[+] [-] adamc|14 years ago|reply
I wonder if the reason JFK didn't wear a hat was... many individuals of his generation didn't particularly care for them. JFK was the first individual of that generation elected to the presidency.
Which doesn't necessarily mean JFK had no influence. But I wonder whether it was part of a bigger pattern.
Obviously can't prove anything from an anecdote, and I'm not sure where you'd get the marketing data to do more... but it would seem that if younger men did resist buying hats, retailers at some level would probably have known.
[+] [-] spiritplumber|14 years ago|reply