# What happened to hats? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 4, 2005, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548 "2005-11-04T21:08:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/1 "2005-11-04T21:08:17Z")
If you watch Turner Classic Movies, you might notice that everybody in any film made before 1965 seems to be wearing a hat whenever out-of-doors. Time was, in Europe and the U.S., nobody ever went outside, in any weather, without a hat. One would have appeared half-dressed. Ladies could even wear hats indoors, and many did. That is no longer the case. It seems people wear hats nowadays only to keep the cold out, or on special, festive occasions. Otherwise, a hat looks rather eccentric. What happened? How and why did hats pass out of fashion? ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/2 "2005-11-04T21:17:03Z")
No cite while I’m at work, but I believe President Kennedy very seldom wore a hat, and this became the fashion – at least in the U.S. I suppose U.S. made movies might have exported the fashion. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/3 "2005-11-04T21:53:44Z")
Contributing factors to not wearing hats are modern climate controled buildings, better control of lice and other parasites, better hair products availible, hair styles that handle the weather better, less scalp deseases, and lastly fashion. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/4 "2005-11-04T22:06:02Z")
Screw hats, what happened to spats?! ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/5 "2005-11-04T22:06:54Z")
Yeah, it’s almost like there was some groundswell of rebellion against established traditions in the early 60’s or something… ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/6 "2005-11-04T22:07:49Z")
> [@Harmonious Discord](#): > > Contributing factors to not wearing hats are modern climate controled buildings, better control of lice and other parasites, better hair products availible, hair styles that handle the weather better, less scalp deseases, and lastly fashion. What do lice have to do with it? Hats don’t repel lice. Do they? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/7 "2005-11-04T22:15:43Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Hats don’t repel lice. Do they? They keep them concealed, though. Or at least make a good effort. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/8 "2005-11-04T22:48:17Z")
I wonder if the advent of decent wet-weather clothes is relevant? After all, the classic image is of the man in the tricorn forging through the driving rain. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/9 "2005-11-04T23:13:47Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > No cite while I’m at work, but I believe President Kennedy very seldom wore a hat, and this became the fashion – at least in the U.S. I suppose U.S. made movies might have exported the fashion. Nah, Kennedy was just following the trend. Hats were already on the way out by the time he was elected. The hats we see men wearing up to ca. 1960 don’t seem to me to have much practical purpose. They don’t do much to keep your head warm or dry, and unless you wear them at all times they are not going to conceal head lice or other problems of cranial hygiene. No, I can only think that their ubiquity was down to simple fashion and conformity. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/10 "2005-11-04T23:16:44Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What do lice have to do with it? Hats don’t repel lice. Do they? They help keep lice from transfering into long hair in public places. Think of those bonnets that covered womans hair, or those veiled hats that went to the shoulders. They were lice barriers. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/11 "2005-11-04T23:18:31Z")
It’s usually traced to Kennedy, as **OldGuy** says. The story is that he didn’t wear a hat at his inaugural. Not quite true, as a zillion previous threads on this can probably be found. He didn’t wear the top hat during his inaugural _address_ and it’s that image that people remember. Still, the change was part of a much larger shift in styles toward casualness that was everywhere in society by 1961. Kennedy’s youth - his thick hair usually hatless and a contrast to Eisenhower’s baldness and general old guy image (sorry) - was a factor, but it would have happened anyway. Hats simply went out of fashion around then. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2005, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/12 "2005-11-04T23:23:02Z")
I wear my classic style black fur-felt Fedora when it’s cold or raining. Of course, I also wear a totally rad Matrix-style black leather trench to go with it. So I don’t conjure up images of 1940s Irish mobsters. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/13 "2005-11-05T01:35:50Z")
Neil Steinberg, [_Hatless Jack: The President, the Fedora, and the History of American Style_](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0452285232/) > [@](#): > > There are three popular theories as to why the fashion of men’s hats died out in the United States. > > One is that men grew tired of being compelled to wear hats in the military during World War II, and abandoned the fashion when they returned to civilian life. The second is that the growing popularity of automobiles, with their isolation, heaters, and low roofs, killed off men’s hats. And the third and most popular theory is that President John F. Kennedy hated hats, didn’t wear one at his inauguration, and his adoring public followed his example. > > Two of these explanations are simply wrong; the third offers only a suggestion of the complex range of social forces that doomed the hat. As we will see, men had an unexpected inspiration to abandon their hats, one that is entirely forgotten today. And what is that unexpected inspiration? Read the book! ---
**Author:** ![Mesquite-oh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a183cd/32.png) [@Mesquite-oh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mesquite-oh)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/14 "2005-11-05T07:56:19Z")
My vote is the overall trend towards more casual dress for males in the workplace, at home, and when they going out. I am guessing a pork-pie hat wouldn’t look so good with the clothes the average American guy wears 90% of the time (shorts, jeans, khakis, t-shirts, polo shirts and oxfords). A baseball cap or a beanie ski cap looks OK. For all the poor suckas who have to wear suit and ties more often than just to weddings and funerals: maybe you guys can bring the classic hat back in style! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/15 "2005-11-05T08:15:04Z")
There were a lot of radical cultural changes in the US after WWII. Radical enough that there is a pretty distinct divide between pre-war culture and post-war culture. From watching a century’s worth of movies, it’s my overall impression that hats were just one of the many things that were seen to be part of the older generation; the pre-war generation. They gradually just came to be seen as “square,” as the newly cosmopolitan war generation gave way to the baby boom generation. Like rock-n-roll gradually pushed jazz aside, hatlessness gradually did the same thing to the fashion of wearing hats. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/16 "2005-11-05T08:21:44Z")
> [@](#): > > My vote is the overall trend towards more casual dress for males in the workplace, at home, and when they going out. I am guessing a pork-pie hat wouldn’t look so good with the clothes the average American guy wears 90% of the time (shorts, jeans, khakis, t-shirts, polo shirts and oxfords) That’s casual dress today. Hats fell out of favor with men in _suits_ in the 1960s. > [@lissener](#): > > From watching a century’s worth of movies, it’s my overall impression that hats were just one of the many things that were seen to be part of the older generation; the pre-war generation. No explanation of why hats were seen to be part of the older generation. As I say above, hats fell out of favor with _businessmen_ in the 1960s, not just the younger generation. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/17 "2005-11-05T08:33:53Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > No explanation of why hats were seen to be part of the older generation. Because they were. It’s as simple as that. **Mildred:** _What’re you rebelling against, Johnny?_ **Johnny:** _Whaddya got?_ All the explanation you’ll ever need, or get. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/18 "2005-11-05T09:04:39Z")
Hats didn’t go out of fashion. Hair came into fashion. Specifically, men’s hair grew longer. How can you show off your magnificent locks with a hat on? ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/19 "2005-11-05T16:53:18Z")
By 1959, the decline of hats was well underway, but the “lower, longer, wider” trend in new cars probably contributed to it. A man no longer had enough headroom to wear a fedora while driving. By JFK’s time, the deed was done. As you can see at Snopes, he did wear a hat at his inauguration, but not often after that. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2005, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548/20 "2005-11-05T17:03:27Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Hats didn’t go out of fashion. Hair came into fashion. Specifically, men’s hair grew longer. How can you show off your magnificent locks with a hat on? ‘The wet-head is dead! Long live the Dry Look. From Gillette.’ [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happened-to-hats/329548.md?page=2)