How did you start wearing hats?

[bluesmandan]

When I was a kid, my dad and I trapped in south Georgia (fox, ****, beaver, coyote, wildcat...) At a GTA meeting (Georgia Trappers Association... sort of like a fair) my dad bought a Beaver Brand (I think) pure beaver hat... it was light brown/sage with dark brown streaks in it and a brown leather hatband. That was HIS trapping hat. When I was in college, I needed a hat for a summer stint as a camp counselor in Alabama, and I "borrowed" his hat. Been wearing hats ever since. I lost or someone stole that hat, though. One day I went looking for it and it was no longer in my possession. Don't know what happened to it. Might have burned up in a friend's housefire back in '03-04 when I was storing some stuff in his garage. I just don't know. Here's a couple pics of me at a very young looking 20 with the hat...

 

[Brother cavefish]

military

 

[Zombie_61]

Addiction? Oh, no, no! Not me, nuh-uh, Nope. No way. I just need to make sure I have a few - you know, for the right occasions. And if I see something really neat. Or a really good price. I'm not looking at fedoras on eBay daily now. I didn't try some vintage ones on last weekend at a second hand store. Nope. I haven't tried to find nice hat shops in the cities I mostly travel to on business (and I'm certainly not going to visit Peters Brothers when I got to Ft. Worth this month).

Nope.

Gee, that's too bad. You may not fit in well here.



ound:

 

[pgmart]

Walking Down Chicago's Michigan Avenue after Thanksgiving 2013, and a young ******* a corner gave me a 20% coupon for Orvis. Orvis was two blocks up so we sauntered in. There was a large display of hats so I tried on a gray crushable felt hat. My wife thought it looked sharp and I never looked back. There was an adjustment period, forgot it here and there, felt odd looking in the mirror but things settled down. Now I feel incomplete without one of my hats.

 

[Meterman]

I took a part time job working at a mortuary when I was in college. The owner required a hat and overcoat as as part of our attire and I never looked back on either of them, even after after leaving that profession. My first fedora was bought in 1984 and was a Royal Stetson center dent, in medium gray. Still wear it.

 

[Beardog]

I wore a Tilley for a while, along with a waxed cotton crushable outback style hat. Always loved fedoras, but just never really thought much about wearing them until recently.

 

[moontheloon]

Where did it all begin for you ?

I am curious about where your passion and love for hats came from..... all of you guys

share your story ... if there is one ... I am very interested

I am 40 and my love started in the summer of 1981 when I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark in the movie theatre.

I've since learned that many hats lovers passion started this way.

shortly after I begged my mom for a brown hat like Indys .... finally around 1982 she came home from an estate sale .. (mom is a tireless picker and always has been... long before I was born... today is her birthday ... she turns 73... I just called her to say Happy Birthday and where was she?.... at an flea market ... ha!!!).... anyway she brought this hat home and I fell in love... I wore it for years until it no longer fit.

I wish I knew where it was today... I don't even remember what kind of hat it was .... but I loved it and wore it every day
... and have basically worn a hat every day of my life since .... be it through my baseball cap phase... or transitioning back into my hat phase.

through the years I would hang pictures of people like Humphrey Bogart, Clint Eastwood, James Cagney, etc on my wall just so I could look at their hats in hopes of finding one like it one day

here is a pic of me wearing that hat that I loved so ... this was taken in 1984 in my back yard with my friend Danielle who I remain friends with to this day

 

[Bushman]

For me, it all started with a Disney child's fedora which came with a chin-strap, and a film called "The Lost World: Jurassic Park". As a kid, I idolized the main big game hunter character Roland Tembo (portrayed by the late Pete Postlethwaite). The man had **** class, and yet was so daring. I used to wear that childs fedora everywhere, I never parted with it until the day I outgrew it. I would walk around my backyard pretending to hunt dinosaurs, because, really, when you were a child in the 90's, that's what you did. I've loved brimmed hats since then.

 

[Beardog]

I came to hats later in life. I bought a leather Aussie style hat, a Tilly hat, and an oiled cotton hat a couple of years ago, then moved into nicer fedora and panama style hats in the last year. Now I am seldom away from home without a hat on my head!

Good idea for a thread. I hope it takes off with replies!

 

[Big Man]

For me, it started with my grandfather. Although I never knew him (he died in 1932), I grew up hearing stories about him and always felt as though I did know him. I was always told that "Dad always wore a hat." My grandmother used to say that when he went to bed, my granddad took his clothes off and put them in a pile right beside the bed and his feet left the floor his hat came off and was put on top of his clothes. When he got up in the morning, as his feet hit the floor his hat went on his head. Almost every old photo I have of my granddad, he's either wearing a hat or has one in his hand. All these stories captured the imigination of a young boy, and I tried my best to be just like my granddad.

I've been wearing a hat for as long as I can remember, and don't foresee changing that any time in the future.

 

[jeffgarf]

Figured I resurrect this old thread to get some responses from the folks who've joined in the past 11 years (me, included). For me it was part of our religious community, though I held out a bit. Most Orthodox Jews who wear the fedoras start at 13. Hassidic youngsters start much younger with their various hats. I got married at 22, still wearing hats. Thanks to my wife for digging this up and no, no matter the hat I will not look like this again.

 

[TLW '90]

I've just always had a hat on my head my whole life.
my dad bought me a trucker hat when I was a baby, then a conductors hat then I was a toddler.
from there my first favorite hat was a Hot wheels baseball hat.
my dad gave me his last Army issued m81 patrol caps when I was 12 and that was the winner.
I've been wearing a USGI m81 patrol cap every day for the past 20 years, and I've got a stockpile of them on hand.

I feel naked without a hat on so I even wear it inside.
when I'm doing things outside I switch to something with a brim all the way around.
previously that was always my USGI m81 boonie.

a few years back I bought a used outback fedora cheap on eBay to use for a Halloween costume and ended up liking that hat.
now it's my choice for outdoor activities in the fall and winter.
I still wear my boonie in the summer.

 

[rstewart8706]

I had worn ball caps my entire life. It was an unwritten rule that you never leave the house without a "hat". At that time a ball cap and a hat were the same thing to me.
At age 40 I got alopecia and have been dealing with having bald spots on my head. Some are small, dime size and some are grapefruit sized. Suddenly about 5 years ago i start getting dermatitis in my scalp right where my ball cap sat. I tried everything and finally determined it was the ball cap. Washed all my caps and even bought new ones but still kept getting these sores in my scalp. I have a Dobbs Savoy i purchased in 2013 for mybsons wedding. I started wearing it when my alopecia reared its head and noticed that i didnt get any sores. It has what i thought was a leather sweatband but i have since read that its just fake leather but whatever it is didnt give me any sores in my head. So I started to look for an everyday hat as the Dobbs is too dressy for everyday wear in my opinion given my wardrobe. Started looking and made my way here and then over to Ebay where i bought a sweet Bond Fifteen from @BobHufford that i intended to be my daily wear hat but decided i need additional colors. So here I am at the Fedora Lounge looking at all kinds of very cool cats and kittens wearing very cool hats.

 

[Judgmentalist]

I’ve never been a hat guy. No ball caps, no cowboy hats—which is a little odd where I come from—nothing.

About twenty years ago, I was in Charleston and wandered into a hat shop. I tried on a bowler, looked in the mirror, and thought, “Well, how do you like them apples? A hat that doesn’t make me look stupid.”

Unfortunately, my wife at the time thought a bowler was a bridge too far in the direction of costume, so I left without buying it.

I have three now, and I still think they look cool. Bowlers will be mainstream again. I predict it confidently and without evidence.

Anyway, fast-forward twenty years. A couple of years ago I lost a bunch of weight and had to completely rebuild my wardrobe. That led to an obsession with suits, both vintage and custom. Somewhere in the process of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, I decided to revisit the hat thing.

Originally, the intention was simply to check all the accessory boxes associated with playing dress-up—which, thankfully, I have an excuse to do a couple of times a week. A proper hat seemed like one of those boxes.

The problem is that hats, in my opinion, are objectively more interesting and complicated than suits.

And so, here we are.

At some point the relationship between the clothes and the hats completely reversed. Instead of choosing a hat to go with the suit, I now pick the hat I want to wear and try to find a suit that fits. Lol. I actually end up wearing my cheaper daily-driver suits way more often than the fancy-pants stuff, but that’s a story for another day. Or another audience maybe.

I wear hats every day because it’s fun. Pretty much every time I leave the house, I put on a hat, despite the fact that the modern world can’t be bothered to accommodate us at all. Cars don’t have enough headroom. Restaurants don’t have anywhere to put them. Chairs have no hat hooks. Society has failed us.

But I really like hats.

I’ve never been much of a collector. I’ve always been more of a “figure out what the right thing is, buy the right one, and be done with it” kind of guy.

Apparently hats don’t work that way.

Different eras, makers, felts, finishes, proportions, construction methods, styles—there’s always another rabbit hole. I think I may have accidentally stumbled into something that is actually worth collecting.

Which is unfortunate, because hats take up a ridiculous amount of room. I think I need to move lol.

 

[Judgmentalist]

I had worn ball caps my entire life. It was an unwritten rule that you never leave the house without a "hat". At that time a ball cap and a hat were the same thing to me.
At age 40 I got alopecia and have been dealing with having bald spots on my head. Some are small, dime size and some are grapefruit sized. Suddenly about 5 years ago i start getting dermatitis in my scalp right where my ball cap sat. I tried everything and finally determined it was the ball cap. Washed all my caps and even bought new ones but still kept getting these sores in my scalp. I have a Dobbs Savoy i purchased in 2013 for mybsons wedding. I started wearing it when my alopecia reared its head and noticed that i didnt get any sores. It has what i thought was a leather sweatband but i have since read that its just fake leather but whatever it is didnt give me any sores in my head. So I started to look for an everyday hat as the Dobbs is too dressy for everyday wear in my opinion given my wardrobe. Started looking and made my way here and then over to Ebay where i bought a sweet Bond Fifteen from @BobHufford that i intended to be my daily wear hat but decided i need additional colors. So here I am at the Fedora Lounge looking at all kinds of very cool cats and kittens wearing very cool hats.

Bob has an eBay account? I need this information lol

 

[Hurricane Jack]

From the other thread.

Show us an old photo of you under a felt hat when you were young!

If this hasn’t already been done, and something like this probably has, here’s an Olin Mills pic of me at age twenty two wearing an eighties Stetson. I’ve worn fedoras and some derby’s back when neither were considered cool. It would also be great if you might include a current photo of you...

www.thefedoralounge.com

 

[Hurricane Jack]

Got my first truck when I was three.

 

[Frunobulax]

Got my first truck when I was three

The same year you killed a b'ar!

 

[belfastboy]

I bought my first fedora in 1962, when I was 12. It was a black, stingy brim, ala Frank Sinatra. I had a good job, pocket full of money. I worked in the carnival and the pimps, gamblers and general roustabouts all dressed well...or at least the ones that had the money and they seemed to garner the most respect. So I wanted to emulate them. The black hat was the perfect complement to the new grey blazer I purchased. Can't remember how much I paid for it but I am thinking it may have been wool. Damn, I wish i still had it.
We had a shoeshine stand and I would often get my brogues shined while wearing my hat and pretending to read the racing form. The shoeshine cost a buck and I would hand him a two dollar bill and tell him to keep the change. I was making just a buck an hour so I had already spent the first two hours of that day's wages..........this was just the beginning of my profligate ways with money.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

The same year you killed a b'ar!

And I made that b’ar into a rug.