Cultural Significance of the fedora?

[Fletch]

Ummm. :eusa_doh:

Yeah.

 

[griffer]

...a rearguard action in the culture wars - a try at re-stratifying sex roles and rehabilitating the 1950s "organization man" and the military-industrial complex he was a part of...

You say that like it's a bad thing.

As for cary grant being metro, no, can't say he was. Metro takes its cue from gay culture, imho, grant was no fop.

Edited for lack of hatty goodness-

Look, you can see the brim- and the ruggedness-

 

[Fletch]

fftopic: (No hat content in this post)

Never said so. But he wasn't a bit "rugged." Long-wearing, durable, and lasting he was. But he was too sophisticated, too smooth. He didn't embody what Harvey Mansfield would call Manliness, despite being 100% male.

As for the re-stratification of sex roles being "a bad thing," I'd say, yes, we ought to know better now. Drawing up a Hays Code for gender roles and relations is as bad an idea for real life in 2006 as it was for the movies in 1933. (The Hays Code was largely brought on by too many early '30s movies with independent women in them.)

 

[ideaguy]

Fletch: my post written after being out for dinner - ate some goat cheese that
made me feel like a goat after a while-after re-reading, I follow u, I no follow me. I'll try to get rid of the $2.00 words and throw in some solid .75 thought-
brief criticism is always best-thanks.

 

[Fletch]

Fletch: my post written after being out for dinner - ate some goat cheese that
made me feel like a goat after a while-after re-reading, I follow u, I no follow me. I'll try to get rid of the $2.00 words and throw in some solid .75 thought-
brief criticism is always best-thanks.

No problem. :fedora:

Now recognizing that haglunde is crashing on a deadline here, I'll present some more observations on Hats in the Movies.

2 legendary hat men here: Edward G Robinson and James Cagney in the early '30s. Yes, they're probably playing gangsters all right, but they're just wearing their lids like upstanding well-dressed businessmen (the image gangsters once wanted to project!)
Robinson's hat is a fine and comfortable looking one, elegant yet soft with a big casual bash in the side. He doesn't even mind that his brim drifts up in the front a bit. Cagney wears a very conservative, but snappy narrow brim. Being small men with big personalities, the hats suit them very nicely.

Mickey Rooney as that all-american kid, Andy Hardy, with Lana Turner in Love Finds Andy Hardy, 1938. Flipping your snap brim up in front marked you as young and impetuous, or if you were older, just a goofy figure of fun.

Maybe the biggest legend of all: Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, 1942. That hat, like its owner, has been there, done that and shows it. It's pinched hard, it's wet, it's battered, but it keeps its shape and its character. Elegant and tough, Bogey is one of the most permanent hat icons we have, and a prime example of the importance of "finding your look" and resisting fashion.

Bogart often wore a plain black hat with a crisp, pinched look and a medium brim - not narrow, not wide. Here a young-ish Bogey in the late '30s before his super stardom, wearing it with dash and verve.

Here he is in the early '50s, older, more weathered, more world weary. The hat is basically the same, but the effect of wearing it just a little lower down over the eyes is huge. This, for the most part, is the way a hat is worn today - the model that has survived time.

 

[David V]

You guys are great, thanks for the interest, it's much appreciated. Let me clarify a bit, my paper is a short one for a college Popular Culture class. The iconic significance I'm looking for is for the period of the 40's. When Thunder says men wore fedoras on a daily basis, the answer I'm looking for is WHY? What did the fedora signify about the man wearing it? I think the creases I read about here would also further specify the image a man was going for?

Thanks,
Eric

Like putting on shoes to go outdoors..or wearing your pants. Putting on a hat meant you were dressed.

 

[griffer]

Under the topic of 'Why did men used to wear hats?'

I propose the 3 point analysis, I have used on historical costume and elements, in ascending order of importance-

1- Function
2- Identification, differentiation
3- Status, sub-set of 2

1- Hats keep you warm in the winter, and the sun off your head in the summer. In our modern world of climate controlled spaces, smaller, climate controlled cars, etc, there isn't as much need for a hat to protect you from the elements. We spend disproportionately longer periods in doors than our for fathers. Fedoras drain water, covers the head, and keep sun off the back of your neck and out of your eyes. The modern fedora, when we do go outside, is the baseball cap or increasingly the boonie as it doesn't leave your neck exposed.

2- Clothing is used like heraldry or plumage. It identifies people as part of a group or unit, and by corollary identifies them as not part of the 'other'. Regional and ethnic dress are examples. More specifically, the hats favored by regions vary over time and space- Homburg, Sombrero, Trilby, Fedora, Cowboy, Gaucho or a Tyrolean. In this sense, the United States after the turn of the century wanted to be a homogeneous country, despite the reality. I think the sense of belonging and identification with society- what critics would pejoratively call conformity- drove that behavior. A sort of mass inertia. Since we can point to so many icons during the period that opted for the Fedora, I think it reasonable to assume that men chose hats that reflected the image they wanted to project. We get into a chicken and egg argument- did the era create a Bogart in its image or vice versa- I am too young to tell you. But if this forum is any example, I am sure men used their hat in the 30s not unlike we use our hats now- to communicate identification and belonging.

3- Status- Similar to identification described above, clothing, and hats in particular, can be opportunities to also communicate your relative status within a group. Quality, cost, iconic devices combine to say something about the wearer. As long as the affluent wore quality hats, as long as your father or your boss wore affluent hats, it was expected that you should strive in emulate their example. The urban beaver hat, quality, fine stitched and silk lined helped communicate your status in society.

 

[DocBob345]

****

Very, very well put, Griffer. I rather enjoyed that!

Best,
Robert

 

[haglunde]

Time's up...

The assignment was to briefly discuss the 40's era hat as a popular culture artifact and apply pop culture analysis to the object. This turned out to be a fascinating study I thought. Although, admittedly, my short paper isn't nearly as fascinating as the movie shots and info from Fletch and Griffer but I did my best under the deadline (had to hand in and post it Sunday night).

I don't know where you guys got the movie images but I really didn't have as much success with the pictures, Fletch, great stuff. I also found a fair amount of contradictory information and had to go with what I could reference. In any case, thanks again gents, great stuff.

Here's the blog entry.

I'm thin with a small head so I normally look like a moron in a hat but after seeing some custom hat fitting pages I'm going to give it a shot some time. I love the Homburg, I think that's the classiest style but the Fedora seems to have the most versatility so that will be what I look for. Gray, with a black band.

Thanks again,
Eric

 

[griffer]

Good work!

Glad your sources agree with me.

Otherwise I'd have to beat them with a stick.

 

[Art Fawcett]

Good work Haglunde!!! You nailed it nicely.

 

[Fletch]

Yes, you certainly did. You managed not to be misled by us aficionados' habit of going waaay too deep into the thing we love. Way t'go. < tips hat >

 

[44forrest]

[The iconic significance I'm looking for is for the period of the 40's. When Thunder says men wore fedoras on a daily basis, the answer I'm looking for is WHY? Thanks,
Eric[/QUOTE]


I think you would be almost better off looking at the 30's as the iconic period for the fedora. In the 20's the homberg and derby hat were the icon changing to the fedora in the 30's. I postulate that the influence of the American west facilitated the change over from the skinny to wider brim fedora hats. They gave more protection from the elements in more rural areas while still maintaining a dress flair. By the time most men came back from the war, (mid 40's) they were forgoing the hat, casting off the fomality with their uniforms. We tend to forget that the returning veterans came home to a poor economy with unsure prospects and if they were drafted young, skills suited better for wartime. The motorcycle gang sprang from this generation. There were many dissillusioned and rebelious returning vets. In the 50's it became acceptable for a man to be in public without a hat. As a child of the 50's and 60's, I don't remember any of the fathers of my friends wearing hats except when playing ball or working outside in the elements, but rarely in fair weather social situations. Then Kennedy did his thing at his inaguration sans a lid the hat was relegated to a relic of the WWI generation male.

Now keep in mind that I am talking through my posterior orifice. Everything I state here is purley suposition. But damnit, I'm right....I think....maybe......oh, nevermind.

 

[griffer]

...But damnit, I'm right....I think....maybe......oh, nevermind.

Um...we were both a day late and a dollar short.

Kid finished his paper on Sunday.

But we can keep speechifying, opining, and speculating.

That's why i like forums....

 

[ideaguy]

I'm in agreement with Fletch on this one. Good work, hagalunde!

 

[WEEGEE]

Three Cheers

haglunde ,


:eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap

 

[Fletch]

The iconic significance I'm looking for is for the period of the 40's. When Thunder says men wore fedoras on a daily basis, the answer I'm looking for is WHY? Thanks,
Eric

I think you would be almost better off looking at the 30's as the iconic period for the fedora.

But here's the thing. We've drawn a veil over the '30s – the good of it as well as the bad. Because people wanted to forget the '30s, all of it, in the same way men wanted to forget the hat.

That, and also, it's now the most recent era that's largely passed from living adult memory. Unless you are a very strange and persistent young person, the '30s are not an option open to you in the same way later decades are.