I was watching a show earlier tonight about the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. I noticed that in all the pictures and video footage most of the men wore suits and hats in public. In present day, I still see a lot of suits, but what caused hats to go out of style? I like them, myself, but I rarely see anybody wearing one. I’m not sure why this is bothering me so much, bit it is. Anybody have any idea?
'Cause John Fitzgerald Kennedy didn’t like 'em.
No, really, JFK didn’t like to wear hats, so he didn’t, and everybody followed suit. There’s an idea…maybe the hat industry had him killed…
That sounds like it makes sense, Gunslinger, but I’ve never heard it before. Do you remember where you heard it?
I’ve heard it described that way too - that he wanted to shed all aspects of the previous administration (Eisenhower) and supposedly Ike looked pretty old in a hat, therefore JFK did not wear hats at most all public events.
Or, you could just chalk it up to the general radical change in fashions of the 1960’s, where hats went away for the most part for men and women. Which is a shame - I really kinda like the way people dressed in the 1940’s and 1950’s.
Now if we could just get rid of those freaking stupid looking “Cat in the Hat” hats that so many teens are wearing…
I’m so old.
I’ve heard the JFK story many times, but I’m not sure it’s more than just a coincidence. The hat seemed to go out of style about the same time as JFK’s administration, but that doesn’t mean the one cause the other. I’m not saying it isn’t true, I’m saying that it sounds potentially apocryphal to me.
There is nothing wrong with those cat in the hat hats. In fact they look pretty darn good on some people. And the people who wear them don’t care what you think anyway. In fact, that’s why they wear them.
No they don’t. Just like paisley-print butterfly-collared shirts never looked good on anyone. Just one of those weird fashion things that people will regret in years to come.
FWIW, I have also heard the same thing about JFK being responsible for hats going out of fashion, and am interested to know if that is indeed just apocryphal, since it wouldn’t be nice for me to continue cursing his name if he doesn’t actually deserve it.
I think it was in Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader, but I don’t know for sure. I know I read it in some semi-trustworthy publication. gimme 10 minutes to see if I ca find a cite on the 'net.
People tell me I have a photographic memory…I remember every bit of trivia that I read…comes in handy for history tests 
So exactly how many of said hats do you own, Hypergirl?
I only have one. It’s striped with yellow and black smileyfaces. But I don’t wear it. I am not one of the people that they look good on. My friend Natan has an offical cat in the hat cat’s hat, bought at islands of adventure, and he wears it frequently. Some people just don’t care what other people think, and it’s that attitude that makes almost anything they wear (or do or say) look good. But this has completely strayed frm the OP.
Hats are becoming more popular of neccesity, skin cancer prevention, so I take advantage of it. I wear hats, real hats - not just caps, more often. I wish I had picked up a rat pack style fedora when I was in Vegas
I read somewhere (who knows where, this was a couple decades ago) that soldiers returning from WW2 usually didn’t wear hats – supposedly, it reminded them too much of the helmets they wore. If this is true, then JFK was merely following a trend, rather than setting one.
And I remember seeing footage of a parade Kennedy took part in – possibly while campaigning for president, but I don’t remember this any too well either – where he carried a hat so he wouldn’t have to wear one and so he wouldn’t lose the all important hat maker vote.
He did wear (and look silly in) a top hat at his inauguration, though.
Does anyone really believe that all those working people (as in the massacre era) quit wearing hats because of JFK? Nah, they simply fell from fashion.
Good riddance, imo.
Of course, all you hat lovers are quite welcome to wear them. Go a-head, make a statement. 
I used to wear a “coolie” hat while gardening. Great invention.
Peace,
mangeorge
You don’t know a lot about fashion, mangeorge. And by the way, that’s a compliment.
If Madonna and Prince can get millions of women to wear underwear in public, then the President of the United States can get millions of men to leave their hats at home. Especially a president whose wife was one of the most influential figures in fashion history, and especially when the country was undergoing a major cultural change anyway; when the baby boomers were ready to accept anything that would distinguish them from their fathers.
Don’t even get us started on the Motion Picture Industry’s influence on men’s undershirts!
Well, like I said before,
No, there’s nothing wrong with them per se. It just amazes me to watch teen fashions - how wearing something that is in style now will get you beat up and openly ridiculed if you wear it 5 years from now, and vice-versa. And teenagers never believe you when you tell them that no, people will not only not be wearing what you are wearing right now 5 years from now, but you will most likely lie with one hand on a stack of Bibles that you ever put on a “Cat in the Hat” hat.
I almost threw away my Jamiroquai CD because they all started wearing those hats.
JFK made a central point of his campaign that he was from a younger generation and his style reflected this in many ways. I recall vaguely his words at his inauguration, something like “let the word go forth to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans”. He was indeed very young to be president and his youth was an issue in the campaign and probably important in helping him win. He definitely was a trendsetter in style as was his wife.
The problem with hats, and I mean real hats, not baseball caps, is that if you do wear one out for an evening, you’ve
got no place to put it when you arrive anywhere. The hat-check person of the past is the dinosaur of today, at least in L.A. And that’s too bad, because even in L.A. it
gets a little nippy at night in January and February, especially for a baldie like me. Stocking caps look low-class, and I think my views on baseball caps can be inferred from my remark above, fedoras are impractical, so that leaves…berets!
These stories are among the other legends that get around, like the JFK hat story, though I don’t know that anyone has ever proven they’re true.
When the Grunge look was in, I used to razz a lot of people about wearing it, and almost universally they would tell me that they had always dressed that way, and it had nothing to do with the fashion trend. But I’ve noticed that almost universally the look has disappeared. All those people who have been dressing that way always suddenly aren’t.
They’re reappear when I make hats fashionable again. Just wait. In the meantime, just wear it at the restaurant. It can’t be rude anymore, because if it were, they would have hat check stations.
I disagree; I think it’d still be rude, just as wearing a hat in church (except a yarmulke in synagogue) is considered rude.
However, I do like the idea of getting a beret
LL