Any chance that the disappearance of the hat has to do with the distiction between social classes getting vaguer and less important? There was a time when the type of hat you wore firmly identified your place in the social strata, at times even your occupation. Maybe people didn’t want to be identified like that anymore, or it’s because we all became one big middle class?
Partly it began with the cloche. It ticked off hair dressers. Hairdressers and milliners no longer cooperated. From there it was only a matter of time until hairdressers came up with styles that excluded hats. The 60s showed that hats could be done without and no one could afford them by the 70s. Gloves died then too.
There is no one reason, but several why hats have died out. In addition to some of those mentioned above, I’ll add that when men’s hair was kept short and greased down, hats didn’t give you that “helmet hair” look like they do with the fuller, dry-look hair that men began to prefer in the 1960s (e.g., JFK).
The absolute first time I even heard about this was during the early '90s, when watching a rerun of the BritCom ‘Are You Being Served’, which is set in a British (London, I suppose) Department store. This episode (originally record in the 1970s) has a scene where Captain Peacock berates Mr. Lucas for wearing a homberg (or something), saying that junior staff must wear caps, and only senior staff can wear hombergs or fedoras (or whatnot) - what puzzled me was this cap was his street clothes that he wore while commuting to work, NOT what he wore while he was working.
In real-life America (and probably the UK) in the 1970s, most workers would have said ‘Get Stuffed, Peacock’, but I think only Mr. Slocombe could say that on the show and get away with it. 
While I was growing up, I know it was commonly believed and told to me that hat-wearing equals constricted-blood-flow-to-the-scalp equals accelerated-baldness.
I grew up with a pathological fear of hats for that reason, which is a shame because I think they look incredibly cool and fashionable. But I started gowing bald in high school and essentially lost it all by 30. Now I get to love and enjoy hats!
Must have been using wet leather for the hatband, eh?
Snopes, in its usual self-congratulatory way, debunks this theory with the fact that JFK wore a top hat at his inauguration. So what? As they also admit, he also did not commonly wear a hat in everyday life. I’m not saying JFK killed the hat, but I think it’s silly to dismiss the possibility that he might have had an influence.
Yes, I said that 20 posts ago.
It does seem, though, that some counterculture types were into various forms of headgear, such as the striped top hat that Jerry Garcia wears on the cover of the first Dead album, and then “peasant” type straw hats, big leather hats, and the like seemed to be somewhat popular. I wonder though, if the fashion for long hair in the 60’s discouraged hats, just by the fact that people didn’t need as much head protection?
If hats are dead, what do you wear with a business suit when it’s really cold out? Surely not a baseball cap?
Well you see, it’s like this:
Post should be read with tonge planted firmly in cheek.
In a past age, it was considered proper ettiquette for a man to tip his hat to a lady. It was also proper to remove one’s hat in the presence of superiors, at the playing of The Star-Spangled Banner, when saluting the flag, and when stepping indoors.
It is simply impossible to do any of those things if you are not wearing a hat to begin with!
So, men were compelled to wear the hats in order to comply with society’s expectations, if for no other reason. Can you imagine what an embarrassing faux pas it would be to be seen not removing a hat at appropriate times? All your friends would be removing their headgear, and you would be left out. You would just know that people were pointing and laughing at you behind your back. “Look at that fellow!” they would be saying, “He has no hat to remove!” Oh, the humanity!
As the 1960s progressed, and many social conventions began to fall by the wayside, younger men began to question the common logic. “What sense is there in wearing a hat,” they said, “when I have become so ill-mannered that I no longer bother to tip or remove it at the appropriate times? I shall therefore do away with it entirely! Take that, Establishment!”
When young men began to grow their hair long, they soon discovered that a hat pushed down on their heads caused their long hair to stick straight out to the sides in a most ridiculous manner. Yet another reason to do away with hats.
As noted in other replies, the baseball cap has mostly replaced other hats, even amongst those surviving members of the last “hats at all times” generation. To these gentlemen, I would like to take this opportunity to point out the modern ettiquette regarding the wearing of the baseball cap:
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While it is considered acceptable to wear a baseball cap with the brim pointing in any direction, i.e. forward, backward, or sideways, the front edge of the brim should be parallel to the ground. In other words, the sides of the cap, as seen from the front of the cap, should be level. The cap, while worn in the “forward” orientation, should not be worn at a “jaunty angle”. While this “jaunty angle” worked with the traditional fedora to impart a rakish & daring appearance to the wearer, it simply looks sloppy with a baseball cap.
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The baseball cap, when worn “forward”, should be placed on the head in a the same manner as that utilized by actual baseball players: pulled down so that the crown of the cap is pressed against the top of the head. The sides of the headband should be touching, or nearly touching, the junction of the head and the tops of the ears. The brim of the baseball cap should be just above the eyebrows. The common practice among “older” men of adjusting the cap to its smallest size and perching the hat on top of the head, often leaving two or more inches of clearance between hat and scalp, is improper. The result of this practice is that onlookers will wonder if you’re trying to make yourself look taller (note: you don’t look taller - you look like you have a long head, and your ears are too low).
Tricorne hats went out with the 18th century, at least in the Royal Navy, although some older officers who liked the look of the old hats wore theirs for quite a bit longer. *I *certainly wouldn’t criticize the fashion sense of the guy in chagre of this thing.
?Urban legend
The pope said that women didn’t have to wear hats to church and killed off the millinery trade.
No reason to be snippy about it.
Since I also said the same thing at even greater length in my reply to Walloon, I take it that you didn’t bother to read the thread at all.
Walloon was right to be snippy about that kind of posters and I’ll double it.
If you don’t read a thread and somebody takes you to task for it, you have one proper response: an apology.
The Catholic Church certainly contributed to the demise of women’s hats.
Some of us remember when the fair sex wouldn’t dare enter a church without a hat on (and often with a veil, as well, if I remember correctly).
But then came the ecumenical changes, and suddenly women weren’t required to wear hats in church.
What’s more, you don’t see those little clips on the backs of pews, either. These were used to attach men’s fedoras, so that they didn’t take up unnecessary room on the seat beside the worshipper.
In the mexican catholic churches I usually went to the women wore a veil, called a mantilla iirc, over their hair. The men wore straw cowboy style hats, which they removed and hung on the clips mentioned by Antiochus. The clips in our church were actually clothes pins.
?Urban legend: Didn’t the pope decree during Vatican II that women didn’t need to wear hats to church?
Whoops! I wish that the links to page 2 were bigger, then I’d remember to keep reading!
Hats are coming back. But it is less noticable because hats are now a way of dressing down, not up.
BTW I wear a very large bush hat when outdoors, and people are often astonished by it, as though I have a hyena perched on my head.