BanjoMerlin
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You folks do realize that these "authors" who are bashing hat wearers are probably more famous on TheFedoraLounge than anywhere else?
AntonAAK said:True but why do people admire/want to emulate James Bond? He is a drinking, womanising misogynist too, who is only out for himself. And he kills people. Sometimes they possibly deserve it, sometimes not.
I think that it is possible to admire aspects of a character whilst disapproving of others. That's why we have anti-heros and that is why good fiction is complex and interesting and not just black and white.
However I've seen a few episodes of Mad Men and haven't seen that many hats in it...
swinggal said:"Well yeah, they are in fashion now so I can wear it and not look like a dork."
Your pal just doesn't realize how dorky he actually is with that attitude.swinggal said:I have a male friend who used to laugh at my other male friends who have been wearing Fedoras for 10 years. The other day I went to his place and noticed a 60s style stingy brimmed Fedora hanging on his coat-rack. I said, 'What's this then?? A HAT!!!!" His reply was, "Well yeah, they are in fashion now so I can wear it and not look like a dork." I just shook my head.
Nuff said.
Feraud said:Your pal just doesn't realize how dorky he actually is with that attitude.
AntonAAK said:However I've seen a few episodes of Mad Men and haven't seen that many hats in it...
MattJH said:Grow a handlebar mustache, slap on a boater hat, and ride your pennyfarthing down to the closest bar and see how many people treat you like they'd treat anyone else.
I agree with most of what you say. Actually, having worn fedoras now for six or seven years I personally have crossed the hat Rubicon. Started out using Panamas and a felt fedora only for casual. But it always seemed to come off pretty well, having carefully avoided the ones that made me look goofy, and I gradually expanded it to hats with formal wear. It turns out that many hats are just plain dressy, like some of my Borsalinos. But I don't wear them all the time, as hats are off-putting to many in a normal business situation. Even now, I feel my hats are better with a blue blazer than with a full suit. However if I go to a conference or some other event where it's not such a one-on-one business setting, no problem. Anyway, here in Washington there are a certain number of people downtown wearing green wool outback hats with trench coats and suits, and I just say to myself "I can do better than that!" So my thought is to start fedora wearing with casual, only as you're comfortable with it, and then expand it into formal wear if you feel like it. Don't do anything you don't want to do, and avoid looking goofy, but otherwise play it by ear. All of this is without reference to Mad Men, which I can't watch because I don't have HBO.MattJH said:Don't lose sight that The Fedora Lounge and its collective interests are a fairly isolated and occasionally regulated/censored microcosm, where people of similar interests finally get to talk to others who harbor the same. That's why this place exists. Because, otherwise, our threads would look much more like this one from Something Awful's forums, which is a fairly accurate representation of what most average folk think about men wearing fedoras. I don't intend to discourage anyone (I wear hats in the colder months!), but it's just unrealistic to believe that you aren't leaving a wake of (some) people thinking that you look silly, outdated, or affected when they see you wearing a piece of clothing that went out of fashion 60 years ago. Reading some of these replies, I get the impression that some here think that they're the strange ones. No, no. It's you. And me. And us. Ridicule is inevitable, particularly on the Internet.
Personally speaking, the only way I've ever felt comfortable wearing a hat is if it's casual. No suits, no noir-anything, no brylcreem in my hair, no oxblood cordovans or whatever. Jeans, shirt, hat. That's me, and that's comfortable. I do whatever I can to fit the hat within a 2010 context, rather than fitting my entire self into a 1940's one. Am I judging those who do? Absolutely not! What's comfortable for me may not be comfortable for you. But I am saying that the more you adhere to old customs, etiquette (oh God, the etiquette, I could go on for days about the etiquette), the phrasings and sayings and postures, the more you distinctly distance yourself from our current cultures and, as such, the more of a target you are because the easiest thing to ridicule is the thing that is different.
Does that make it okay? No. Is it unavoidable, eternal human nature that you'll just have to live with, because you've made your bed? Ab-so-lute-ly. Grow a handlebar mustache, slap on a boater hat, and ride your pennyfarthing down to the closest bar and see how many people treat you like they'd treat anyone else. They won't, because you've so vehemently rejected their collectively similar culture on a very carnal level; appearance.
If I offended anyone in this post, I didn't mean to! I'm just trying to offer some outside-the-microcosm observations. Sometimes I think I might be the only one here that wears Nike sneakers and baseball caps regularly and listens to current music and pays attention to current fashions and never really watched any black and white "hat movies." I don't exactly fit here, I just like the conversations and people.