Nothing to do with etiquette; it’s an anti-gang rule. The usual formula is “No Caps, No Colors”, and it often applies to customers as well as employees.
Maybe in some places, but here in the middle, I think it’s a traditional etiquette thing.
Honestly, I don’t know a lot of men who would wear a hat to work, and the ones who would, would wear dirty-ass trucker caps. eew.
I checked the dress code at my job today, and there’s no list of what to wear. Only what NOT to wear. Tank tops, sports teams t-shirts, and hats.
Fedora: named after Fedora, played by Sarah Bernhardt
Trilby: named after Trilby O’Ferrall played by Dorothea Baird
Porkpie: named after … but also originally a womans hat.
So all goofy looking androgynous hats originally worn by metrosexual hipsters.
applauds
I wore a fedora last year (I admit it. There. I would have done so this year, too, but I need a better quality one). I’m pretty sure the fedora police come and confiscate it and revoke your fedora-wearing license if you don’t practice correct hat etiquette.
I can’t speak to porkpie hats and trilbies, though.
The problem with dress codes in general, is they can’t state “Don’t dress like an idiot” because people don’t understand what they means. Do they just say “no hats”, and hopefully that will reduce the number of people dressing like an idiot. Wearing a baseball cap to work looks very unprofessional in most offices, so I think the policy is a good idea. I wouldn’t want an employee greeting the public wearing a baseball cap.
You say that like it’s a bad thing 
To me, part of a man being able to pull of the look is also knowing when and where it should be worn. Call me stodgy (I *think *you just did) but it’s just my little old opinion. Now are you gonna put your coat over that puddle or not, because I’m late for getting my roller set at the beauty parlor.
When I was an elementary teacher full-time, there were a couple of teachers in my building who really wanted hats banned in school altogether.
I always made it clear that I was okay with hats, and most teachers agreed with me, so there was never a blanket condemnation of hats put out by the powers that be’d. Hats were fine in my room and not in Maya’s, and kids were able to deal.
BUT we had occasional assemblies at which classes would present their work, and the anti-hat brigade decided to try to ban hats at these assemblies. Most of their argument was “well, it’s rude.” The other part was “some of the kids wear their hats so low you can’t see their faces.” One teacher used a student in my class that year as an example. This student was extremely shy and did indeed pull his hat very low over his face (which was deliberate on his part). “You can’t see him,” she said, “and you certainly can’t hear him either.”
I said that I didn’t understand what made it rude, and didn’t agree that it was, but that I could support the second argument. But in addition to banning hats, I added, I assume we will also require [name of student]* to get a haircut?
*[name of student] was an extremely shy girl in another classroom who had very long hair that she routinely used to cover her face when the going got tough, such as when her class was presenting something at assembly.
There was a brief silence while people pondered this one. Then I was told that this was a VERY different situation and that removing a hat was NOT the same as a hairstyle, but the argument lacked vehemence. In the end we didn’t ban hats at assembly.
I imagine the ban on hats in the workplace is either the same somewhat-outdated idea of it being rude, or as someone mentioned above, it’s easier to ban all hats than to try to write a policy about which hats will be banned and which won’t.
In AUS, hats are compulsory in most elementary schools during summer. To keep the sun off. To prevent skin cancer. Aus has a fairly high rate of skin cancer.
My kid isn’t let outside unless he has his hat on.
Interesting. I was talking about indoors–do the kids wear their hats indoors as well or are they instructed to take them off when they get inside?
“Trilby” is also the novel/play/movie that gives us the word “Svengali.”
He’s too busy flogging the office boy for forgetting to stab the frozen ink pots with an ice pick.
What would he do to you if you put another lump of coal in the fire?
This is elementary school, and there are very few hipsters present: they refuse to wear hats unless required to do so (outside only).
FWIW, unlike post-revolutionary France and post WWI Turkey, we don’t have a tradition explicitly rejecting self-identifying and discriminitory dress codes: if you want to self-identify as RC, Muslim, or a gang member, you can generally do so.