When?

[budward]

So what's the date (or range of dates) when it's time to wear straw and stop wearing felt?

 

[jamespowers]

When it stops raining and when starts raining .
It really depends where you live. I mean people in Hawaii can wear them just about every day.
I have already worn mine several times but I live in California and it doesn't get too bad most of the time. So my guide is simply rain.
Traditionally, from April to September is fine for straw hats. Again, it depends where you are located though. You never wear one at the North Pole.

Regards to all,

J

 

[Andykev]

Oh what the hat do I know?

No, although true with the rain....there are specific dates. Let me look it up...wow I can't find it! I recollect it was May 15th, and the end of "straw season" was the end of baseball, when men threw their boater hats up into the air and onto the field. HELP. I can't remember, or find the reference in my books.

 

[Sergei]

I grew up back east. The traditional dates were after memorial day in May and no later than Labor Day in September. It was socially taboo for women to wear white shoes after those days, as well as men with white belts. During that era, a lot of Californian's were transplanted Easterner's so the tradition of those dates carried over for really no reason other than tradition's from their regions. Over the years, at least here in California anything goes of when to wear straw. But out east, it is far more frowned upon to deviate from those dates posted above.

Hope this helps...
-Sergei

 

[gcollins]

The book Hatless Jack is a good read, and it discusses in a bit of length on the dates for straws and felts. And he does state that the dates were largely driven by the hat lobby as a means to drive seasonal sales.

Also of note in that book related to the dates was the many instances of hat violence. Hoodlems would go on rampages the day after 15 Sept and terrorize any straw hats and their wearers they would see. Steal them, pounce on them, and that would force people to have to buy a new hat almost immediately--quite interesting how men would be too embarrassed to be seen by others outdoors without a hat. You have to read that part. Reading that today seems so otherworldly to us that grew up without the hat culture. The book's author surmises that the hat violence was instigated by the hat shops....an interesting twist on marketing and driving new sales eh?

 

[Kaleponi Craig]

Today is a beautiful day in the San Francisco Bay Area and I am wearing my Panama. But Monday it's supposed to rain, so on comes the fur felt again. For me, it all has to do with the weather; sunny and nice; Panama, cold or rainy; fur felt.

Regards, Kaleponi Craig

 

[jamespowers]

Today is a beautiful day in the San Francisco Bay Area and I am wearing my Panama. But Monday it's supposed to rain, so on comes the fur felt again. For me, it all has to do with the weather; sunny and nice; Panama, cold or rainy; fur felt.

Regards, Kaleponi Craig

Kaleponi brau,

I agree with you. Weather drives the straw thing out here for me. Secondly, I could care less what any hatless onlooker may think. By the next season they might figure out why any hat is important---especially when such things as skin cancer and premature aging are linked to sun exposure.

Regards to all,

J

 

[Biltmore Bob]

Long sleeves felt and wool, short sleeves straw and linen.