The Hat Wardrobe

Fifty years ago, the hatmakers association told men that they needed a dozen hats in order to be well dressed (the same people believed a man needed twenty suits and two dozen pairs of shoes). That wardrobe included a high silk top hat, a folding opera hat, a black or midnight blue soft hat, a derby, a homburg, a snap brim, an off-the-face (whatever that was), a lightweight felt, a sports, a straw sailor, a panama and a semi-sport type. Annually, the Hat Style Council would present the man it annointed as the "best-hatted men of the year" one of each, though it strikes me that those were the men least likely to need them.

As hat wearing declined, the Hat Institute of America declared that men actually could get by with only five hats, or six if he needed a cap for the country. It's a sign of the state of the hat that neither the Hat Institute not the Hat Style Council still exist as a functioning institution.

Men wore hats when they spent much of the day outside. They provide shade and keep the head warm. The former function has been taken over by sunglasses, which are considerably more convenient to store when they're not needed. The requirement for warmth has been reduced by a combination of central heating and the automobile.

The hats we need today depend on when we wear them. If a man has but one dress hat for winter it should probably be a charcoal fedora that can serve to show respect outdoors at a burial. The fedora is a city hat that's compact enough to deal with the challenges of low automobile roofs. Men who drive convertibles with the tops open most of the time might well choose the more elegant homburg instead. Also known as an Anthony Eden, after the post-war prime minister of Britain who favored them, the homburg is the most formal hat after the topper.

May to September is straw hat season and neither fedora or homburg is appropriate in the Northern hemisphere during those months. Instead, the made in Ecuador panama is the prince of straw hats (it certainly takes a princely income to afford a hand woven superfine Monte Cristi). The round topped optima is the classic version, and it folds for travel.

The heart of my hat wardrobe is for more casual pursuits. Men still wear hats for practical reasons while playing at sports such as fishing and golf. James Lock & Co offers a selection of tweed caps that keep the sun and rain out in stylish fashion, and I confess to a liking for their straw boater for walking down the fairway in summer.

In the United States there are still a variety of suppliers for quality hats. I've had good service when I purchased linen caps from Hartford York, though I suggest that shoppers will want to be careful to avoid brands with the poor taste to place their name tag on the outside of the hat band. To re-purpose an old New Yorker cartoon, "If my parents had wanted me to wear my name on my hat they would have named me Borsalino."

The New Yorker

I doubt if The New Yorker has ever considered itself a consumer finance magazine but the 1998 publication of a piece titled My Father's Closet in that magazine arguably saved me more money than anything else I've read over the years.

The author was John Seabrook, whose father was anointed one of America's best dressed in Esquire's first list, published around 1960. He wrote that his father's city clothes were made in New York and London, but his country clothes were made in Hong Kong.

At the time of publication I had been a Turnbull & Asser bespoke shirt customer for some years and had no complaints about the shirts. I did develop a serious complaint about the valuation of the U.S. dollar which was on its way to a 50% decline in value against the English pound. Then a light went on in my head.

This light eventually led me to the hotel suite of Joe Hemrajani, a principal of Hong Kong tailors MyTailor.com. http://www.mytailor.com/

Joe proceeded to copy the measurements of one of my bespoke shirts and promised to copy the construction in return for an extra charge that seemed more than reasonable to me. He didn't have T&A's selection of Sea Island cotton cloth in varied stripes and checks but his Thomas Mason fabrics more than covered the basics I was looking for.

My first order was for a variety of semi-solid fabrics including a light gray twill, tan nailhead and a navy on blue glen check. No pocket, of course. And each with my initials monogrammed in maroon inside the collar where the label is located on a ready to wear shirt.

Two months later my sample shirt arrived. As did, some weeks later, the balance of my first order. For 35% of what I'd have spent on Jermyn Street.

Dozens of shirts later, I religiously renew my subscription to The New Yorker. You never know when it might save you some serious money.