As I have written every year, May 15 is the traditional beginning of straw hat season, which means put the felts away and get out the straws. Weather is the primary justification for hat-wearing these days, for those to whom justification is necessary, and the need for protection from the sun must be widely understood or we would be spared the seasonal sea of baseball caps. So armed, where I usually limit my felt-wearing to sunny days of driving with an open top or times when the weather forecast has some likelihood of drizzle, in straw hat season I do not hesitate.
Two styles of panama hat are traditionally handsome and those are the optimo and the planter's hat with its curled brim. To them I add the Milan (pronounced Mylen) braid, and the straw boater with a black ribbon. Wear the boater and the panamas with casual clothing, or wear the panamas and the Milan with suits, like Peter O'Toole in The Last Emperor, and odd jackets. Finally, somewhat counter intuitively, the boater is also the best choice to wear with a summer dinner jacket.
Photo: The Last Emperor
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5 comments:
May 15th? I always thought the straw hat season was Memorial Day to Labor Day. Although some in my Orthodox Jewish world declare the season to be from the Holiday of Shavuot (which this year falls out on June 7-9) and Rosh Hashana, which is generally around labor day.
I've heard Easter as often as any other day given for straw hats.
It is interesting that the boater is casual, while it is also the only good choice of headwear for a dinner jacket in the summer, white or black.
Hard to see a picture of the man without imagining him leering, "Sho, Trebek..."
Hold the phone!
When you say boater, I instantly think of what is also called a skimmer. It is the hat we associate with Harold Lloyd, W.C. Fields, and gondoliers.
Surely you don't mean that hat, do you? As much as I like the boater, I consider it so far out of fashion as to be relegated, sadly, to costume. The wearing of proper hats draws the occasional raised eyebrow and even some gawks, but a man wearing a boater is likely to encounter wags asking him when his next barbershop quartet performance starts.
Which is too bad, really.
As for when to switch to straw, I'd say anywhere between Easter and Memorial Day, weather permitting. I debuted my new straw hat just this past weekend (the Orleans from Miller Hats, a US-made coconut straw porkpie), but I'm back to felt today on California's Central Coast: it's too cold for straw!
Yes Horatio, a boater is a skimmer and vice versa. And though they may be costume in the city, I have been wearing one on the golf course for many years and it looks great there. It also looks great with black tie, which is itself close enough to costume for the combination to look good.
May 15 is actually the correct day according to my library, presumeably because of the start of the British Season.
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