I have an odd relationship to Irish tweed newsboy hats, like the one you see in the photo. When in college, I bought a similar Irish tweed newsboy flat cap and the first time I wore it while playing golf with my teammate John Mikals, he asked me if I would sell it to him. I said yes to that request and we were both happy about the deal.
Many years later I bought a similar Irish tweed newsboy cap and the first time I wore it I went to a local luncheonette and the guy behind the counter, whom I had known over the years, admired my cap and asked to buy it. Once again I said yes.
The only way to account for this is to say that these kinds of hats look good on me. At least that’s what I like to think and so when I saw Ralph Lauren selling them this year, I ran right out and bought myself one for Christmas. You decide if this look works for me.
When you think of hats, many images come to mind. My favorite is the wild top hat in “The Cat in the Hat,” the popular Dr. Seuss book that became one of the top-selling children’s books of all time. That cool cat wore a red-and-white stripped top hat and was nothing but trouble for the two kids and the little fish.
There are many examples of fun-looking cool hats. We have the fedora on Harrison Ford in all those Indiana Jones films, the Detroit Tigers baseball cap on Ice Cube in “Boyz in the Hood,” the black fedoras on the Blues Brothers, the lucky floppy hat the female drug runner insisted on wearing in the film “Goodfellas” and, of course, the Mad Hatter in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
Human kind’s love of hats goes way back, as far back as 30,000 years ago when men wore bearskin caps. Hats have always been worn by military men like Napoleon, who wore that three-cornered hat called a tricorne.
Hats serve a variety of purposes, including protection against cold, a shield against the sun and to hide baldness. But they do much more than that.
Religions use hats to designate the faithful. In Judaism the yarmulke is worn to show respect. In politics, hats can be worn to show solidarity like those red baseball caps with the letters MAGA emblazoned on the brim.
Nations use hats to symbolize who they are. The French beret is a sign of artistic creativity though the beret worn by Faye Dunaway in the film “Bonnie and Clyde” may have set the image of the French beret back a few decades.
The American cowboy hat is a symbol of rugged individualism and the British bowler is a sign of sophistication and class.
Fedoras are those felt numbers with a mid-sized brim and a crease on top that were very popular in the Fifties and worn by gangsters. My father use to wear them and now I wonder if this was a secret message he was sending to us kids that he was a seriously connected Italian.
Back in the 18th century, women once wore wide-brimmed straw “Shepherdess” hats that were a sign of wealth. Later on in the 19th century, bonnets became popular and were used to shield the female profile and thus discourage dirty old men from looking at them. Pillbox hats were promoted by Bob Dylan in his song “Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat” and pillbox hats were made famous by Jackie Kennedy, who was frequently seen wearing them.
Currently the most popular hat in the world is the baseball cap and you may have noted how kids wear them backwards and sideways, which may mean something, but I’m not sure what.
Personally I like my Irish tweed, herringbone, newsboy cap just fine, but I’m sure that if someone comes up to me next time I wear it and offers to buy it off my head, I probably will comply. After all why should I be the only one who benefits from wearing hats?
