We are all far too familiar with the over-used phrase: if you want to get ahead, get a hat. But, to paraphrase Stephen Sondheim, does anyone still really wear one? Apart from the odd middle-aged politician who thinks a baseball cap will connect with the “Yoof” vote or the ubiquitous English summertime Panama, traditional hats such as the Homburg and Derby have long been going the way of the Dodo.
Neil Steinberg’s new book, Hatless Jack: The President, the Fedora and the Death of the Hat, chronicles the damage done to the industry by John F. Kennedy’s refusal to wear hats, though his brief presidency probably had less of an effect on hat sales than the automobile boom and the vogue for long hair during the 1960s Youthquake.
But despite all this, the reality is that the hat is not dead. Classic men’s styles – particularly the Fedora, Trilby and Pork Pie – are back in popular demand with a generation that can’t even recall their grandfathers wearing them.
Mr Mole at Bates Gentlemen’s Hatter on Jermyn Street has seen it all. He is kept company by Binks, the shop cat from 1921-26, who sits embalmed in a glass case wearing a top hat with a cigar in his mouth. “Something he used to do to amuse the customers, I understand,” says Mole.
Within the hour of my visit, Bates is visited by a chap who has mislaid his last Panama underneath an elephant, an Afro-American someone who needed an emergency Fedora for a funeral, and a gaggle of chi-chi Italians wanting tweed flat-caps “like the Madonna wears”. As Mr Mole says: “Hats might not have changed much in the past hundred years but if you haven’t worn a hat before then it’s going to be new and trendy to you.”
Bates’s celebrity customers range from David Hockney, Elvis Costello, David Suchet and Rik Mayall, who wants to revive the Homburg, to pop idols such as Will Young and Robbie Williams. Here, you’re as likely to rub shoulders with a high court judge as a badass rapper stocking up on felt gagster gangsta Fedoras. Mole takes all this in his stride and even reports a steady sale of hats many would consider to be on the critical list. “Of 25 boaters we stocked this spring, we’ve only got three left,” he says.
At Lock & Co, the St James’s Street hatter established in 1676, marketing manager Janet Taylor seems delighted by the sheer diversity of customers. “We’ve always prided ourselves on making hats for everyone from royals to costermongers. Anyone who appreciates a good hat can come to Lock.” To name drop, Lock The company has made hats for Lord Nelson, Oscar Wilde, the Duke of Windsor, Winston Churchill, Frank Sinatra, Jackie Kennedy and Diana, Princess of Wales. But it’s contemporary icons such as Johnny Depp, Madonna, Bryan Ferry, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ralph Fiennes who are leading a new generation through its doors.
Like Bates, Lock remains a family business. Traditions are upheld. Lock still makes the Coke (bowler hat) it invented for the gamekeepers at Holkham Hall in Norfolk while The Confirmateur, a machine that measures illustrious head shapes such as the Queen’s, is still used to fit bowlers and toppers.
“We’re now predominantly a ready-to-wear shop,” says Ms Taylor. “I think it surprises customers that in the grand scheme of luxury goods we’re not ridiculously expensive.” The bestseller for Lock is inevitably Montecristi Panama (from £160 going up to £575 for the Superfine model). “The thinner snap brim hats are becoming very fashionable,” she notes, Taylor “But with the increased emphasis on protection from the sun, the wide brim Panama is popular.”
Other styles have found new favour, too. The Gill, the peaked tweed cap named after the man who hand-makes it, is beloved of Madonna and Guy Ritchie and therefore with followers of fashion. Another iconic Lock shape, the Turnberry tweed flat cap made for the Duke of Windsor when he was still the Prince of Wales, is now sported in country retreats and London hotspotsNotting Hill to manor houses.
The Fedora and the Trilby have enjoyed a revival thanks to Robbie Williams and footballers Freddie Ljungberg and David Beckham who team the hats with jeans and Converse trainers. Non-celebrities could opt for Lock’s Voyager Trilby in bitter chocolate, taupe, mid-grey, navy and black. is a natty city hat that rolls-up into a tube for travel.
A whole new generation of men’s hat wearers has been introduced to the grand old hatters by hip-hop, skaterboys and extreme sports. Many adopted the vintage hat brand Kangol as part of their uniform at a time when hats, beyond the baseball cap, were all but obsolete among youngsters. It introduced a generation.
“The cool factor is crucial to us,” says Kangol chief executive David Heys. “We’re nowhere near the biggest hat maker in terms of size or revenue but in terms of growth we’ve experienced phenomenal sales in the past five years. Everyone’s making hats now – Nike, Adidas, Diesel, Puma.”
Kangol hasn’t rested on its laurels. Using classic shapes such as the iconic 504 flat cap as a blank canvas, its design director Nichola Hayes reinvents the brand with collaborations, limited editions and technological innovations.Crystal ball gazingLooking ahead to next summer, Kangol has commissioned graffiti artist Apishangel to design graffiti print baseball caps for the Kangol Red label, and Kangol Blue will feature a bright orange and emerald green Needle Argyle flat cap, and an aquamarine and chocolate brown braided straw Trilby.
But it’s the old styles that are pushing the new hat renaissance. “It’s funny that the younger gentlemen who come into Bates ask me for the classic shapes,” says Mole. So in a perfectly timed move, Bailey, the LA-based hatter owned, like Kangol, by the Bollman Hat Company, is coming to Europe for the first time this autumn since it was founded in 1922.
Bailey has a unique Hollywood heritage. It has created hats for stars of the golden era such as Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant as well as contemporary actors such as Bruce Willis and Viggo Mortensen. Under the moniker Bailey of Hollywood, the label is re-releasing classic film noir hats such as a snap brim Madison in chocolate fur felt with a centre dent crown, a grey merino suede Philip Marlowe turn-down brim with a tear drop crown, and a classic Gatsby eight-quarter cap in salt and pepper tweed.
Bailey Signatures reinvents the classics for a fashion audience with spot and stripe grey Fedoras and, more unusually, beaver finish fur felt Stetsons.
Bailey’s classic gangster shapes have the right noir heritage that should offer a broad appeal to action men as well as fashion boys. “The time is right to bring Bailey to Europe because we’re seeing men’s wear moving away from sport and becoming much more smart and glamorous,” says Bailey managing director Christopher Swan. “The formal hat is a huge trend now. The young generation have made it cool again to wear hats and maybe opened the door for men to consider sophisticated hats again.”
