Saturday, September 8, 2012

The History Of The Fedora Hat

Although the most likely mindfulness association of the Fedora hat is with gangsters from the 1920s, polished is a surprising history of this hat style. The Fedora hat has a loop down the top in the middle and is pushed in on the front on both sides, with the limits slightly stooped down to protect the faculty from sunshine. It was first off a hat worn be females. It was made popular in a play that starred the resolute Saran Bernhardt in 1889 where queen played the splendid role of Princess Fedora ' to fascinated - out houses on Broadway.

Women picked up the fashion trend and began emulating Ms. Bernhardt by tiring " Fedora " hats thereafter. This female fashion trend lasted about 10 - 15 oldness and then suddenly men began captivating up the originate by exhausting this hat. This is not unlike the early transition of Marlboro cigarettes that were first marketed toward females, which failed miserably, and out of desperation were sold to men, without changing the tobacco blend, the package coloring, or any product details except for the marketing campaign direction.

The Fedora hat enjoyed this gender re - identification without a major manufacturer putting the marketing dollars and muscle behind it. For some unexplained reason this hat became very fashionable for a man to wear sometime around 1910 or so. On or around that time women stopped wearing them and moved on to more elaborate bonnets that became the dominant women ' s fashion of that time.

Maybe it was because of the simplicity of this hat style and the fact that you could roll it up to store it, without damaging it, that it left the world of women ' s fashion and moved on to become the dominate choice in men ' s hats for the 30 or so years following its first adoption by men around 1910.

One cannot watch any old gangster movie, especially the ones in black and white without see almost all the men wearing one. Fedoras are as much a part of the gangster attire of the prohibition times as is the " Tommy ' machine gun in a violin case. If you wanted to look like a tough guy, one who around which you should watch your step, the Fedora hat was the thing to wear. There are even very funny scenes in the black and white movies of those times, when all the men are wearing Fedora hats and are having a bar brawl, knocking each other here and there, hitting each other over the head with a chair, yet not one of them loses their Fedora hat in the process.

Hats for men, with the exception of baseball hats have completely gone out of fashion. But should a sudden fashion craze overtake men ' s fashion and put hats once again in the spotlight, one would hope it would be de rigueur once again to wear a sporty Fedora hat. Should this miracle occur, Humphrey Bogart, God rest his soul, would be very proud of you.