Friday, December 16, 2011

Women Preaching And Serial Hat Wearers

Perhaps I can briefly follow up on a couple of comments on my last post. Both Michael & Hanne and the inimitable Chairman Bill referred to the number of hats on show in the picture of Neville Chamberlain arriving at Heston Airport. CB actually said that "you wouldn't find a single hat in a similar photo of today". I have to say that if you had been at Manchester Airport at 11.00pm last Monday when my plane from Munich arrived (by the way, Martin, it took about two hours by comparison) you would have seen one hat on show - mine! I am a serial hat wearer and have been most of my life. My photograph shows me this morning about to take Amy out for a walk and wearing the Fedora (*) I bought in Munich. I apologise for my slightly startled look and for the imperfect quality of the shot as Dr Johnson might have said : "Sir, a dog taking a photograph is rather like a woman preaching. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." I bought the hat in a Munich Department Store (they had an excellent selection of hats available) and I was attracted to it by its claim to be "crushable". The claim was tested during my return journey when I consigned the hat to the overhead luggage locker (it is rude to wear your hat whilst being served a can of beer and a bag of crisps by the stewardess), and a fellow traveler dumped an enormous case on top of it. As you can see, it emerged rather well from the experience.

(*) I realise that I might be sparking a new debate in calling my hat a Fedora. The brim is too large for it to be a Trilby and it has neither the shape nor the ruggedness of a Stetson, but one might be tempted to think of it as a Homburg. My own feeling is that it has neither the stiffness nor the central gutter of the typical Homburg.

32 comments:

  1. Hello Alan:
    How splendid that you are a wearer of hats. And what a marvellous fedora with which, particularly after its baptism of fire, so to speak, on the Munich flight, you must be very well pleased. We too constantly wear hats, the wearing of which seem to come and go in the fashion stakes as surely as the rise and fall of the FTSE. But, no matter - we persist.

    Thank you so much for the comment left on our recent post, to which we have made reply, and for becoming a Follower.

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  2. Great photo of a great man! Who needs Neville Chamberlain?

    I own a lot of hats, but rarely wear any of them. But... I'm strange like that.

    One of my most embarrassing experiences stemmed from something in my very first professional comic book. I scripted that a certain character would be wearing a fedora. The artist drew him as wearing a bowler! And the readers who spotted the goof acted as though I'd made the mistake.

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  3. Jane & Lance : Hat wearers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your cold head.

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  4. Silver Fox : Strange, you! No, never. A little eccentric maybe, but all the best people are.

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  6. Silver Fox : There is an old Yorkshire saying : "there's nobbut me and thee with any sense - and I'm a bit worried about thee"

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  7. I do believe that would qualify as a Fedora. Perhaps you will start a new revolution in hat wearing. I'm a hat wearer, too. My favorite was a dark green suede floppy newsboy style cap, but I left it in the back window of my car in the sun for just two days and, alas, it's no longer dark green. It's sort of half and half. This was filed under Live and Learn.

    You look dashing, despite being slightly startled. Perhaps Amy's photographic skills will improve over time.

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  8. Teresa : I do believe that fedoras started life as women's hats and it was only in the 1920s that they became fashionable for men.

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  9. nice. i like hats too...used to wear them a lot more than i do now...have one similar to the one you are wearing and i would call it a fedora as well but then again maybe i am just uneducated...

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  10. As one regular hat wearer to another, I salute you! Like the Fox, I have quite a collection, but unlike him I actually wear all of mine.

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  11. Allan, this made me think of Allan Sherman’s ‘Mexican Hat Dance song!

    "There are Mexicans dancing on derbies.
    There are Mexicans dancing on caps.
    They just throw their fedoras
    Wherever the floor is,
    And start doing horas and taps.
    They won't quit! They go on!
    It's a Mexicn custom,
    To take hats and bust 'em,
    By doing a dance thereupon."

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  12. And you look great in it too!

    My son, now 19 LOVES hats. He wore a Fedora to 6th grade, for heaven's sake. (and at times he would wear a tie). We begged him to be normal and wear a simple t-shirt and maybe a baseball cap, but NO! Do you know, he actually started a fad in our small town? ha. He loves them to this day,

    and he LOVED one that Tess Kincaid featured on her blog over at WILLOW MANOR... :)

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  13. Well Alan being Catholic I wore hats to church on Sunday's for years. Had to have hats and gloves to match you know. You look handsome in yours. I was thinking of hats worn by serial players, Joe Friday, Roy Rogers, Zorro, Nick Charles, you get the idea.
    QMM

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  14. You look great in your fedora Alan! I've always loved hats. The fashion here is baseball caps for men and no hats at all for women. I guess you really can't call that fashion can you? Ah well. I wear them regardless.

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  15. Having been forced to wear one as an RAF officer, I now have an aversion to them; much like haircuts and shaving at weekends.

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  16. No debate. Yes, Fedoras are pinched, Homburgs have a blocked gutter. I'm a milliner, but rarely wear a hat... -J

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  17. Fedora..yes I think that describes it perfectly. A hat suits you Alan:)

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  18. Sounds like you (or your fellow passenger) really put that hat to the test. I love hats and wish more men--and women--wore them.

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  19. Alan, did you ever watch 'The Singing Detective'? You have the look of Philip Marlow, the gumshoe who sings at a dance hall and takes the jobs "the guys who don't sing" won't take.

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  20. I wish I had a scanned photo of my father. He ALWAYS wore a hat to work and we lived in Los Angeles! I mean, nobody wore hats to work in LA in the Sixties & Seventies. But my dad liked hats. He was a Mid-Western boy from Chicago. Hats kept his head warm. When I see the clothes & hats on the television show, "Mad Men", I am reminded of Dad. He was in advertising on the broadcast sales side. Yeah. I like hats.

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  21. I too love hats but can never seem to find any that look good...Yours is great, however. I hope you and your family enjoy the upcoming holidays.

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  22. Some people seem to suit hats and some don't. The consensus seems to be (and I agree) that you suit them. A proper hat is so much nicer than the headgear we mostly see these days. But do you have a cap?

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  23. I'm thinking Indiana Jones. Amy's got a good eye, if a little shaky!

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  24. That is obviously a cowboy hat. I wear toques. They warm your ears better than hats!

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  25. You look great!...and may I say more power to the hat wearers of the world...I just love hats!

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  26. Do girls count? I have a fedora! It has a narrow brim, though..not like yours in the photo.

    I think Brian stopped wearing hats when he grew that mowhawk. I mean...you can't do both, can you? ha.

    And you post was charming and entertaining as always, Alan...and the comments section came in a close second! haha.

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  27. When my daughter was in her 20's she wore a fedora. Of course she dropped the fedora soon and left it with me. If it firtme I would wear it.

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  28. Great hat Alan. I have a trilby, but rarely wear it. Perhaps i should take it out of its box again.

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  29. I used to wear one like yours in my 20s, but when I shaved my head in '95, I felt hats didn't suit me anymore. At the turn of the millenium, I came back to hats, but favoring models with a slightly narrower brim. I have a few colorful ones; and I also wear caps!!
    :)~
    HUGZ

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  30. Alan, your hat is a lot nicer than the present invasion of baseball caps. I like hats but cannot wear one... sob.

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  31. A wonderful hat at that--I have a Pendleton hat that's similar--not sure of the very proper term for the style, tho I think there's some leeway in the term fedora.

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