Public Morals TV Series Hat Accuracy

[Christopher Smith]

Hi everyone,

I was watching the series Public Morals recently and had a thought about the hat accuracy. The show takes place in the 60''s. The hats worn by Ed Burns and Brian Dennehy who play an Irish-American police officer and mob boss respectively are Borsalino's. They both have the gold branding on the bow which I thought didn't appear until the 70's. Also, what interested me was that Ed Burns, as an Irish-American police officer, would he have had the salary at the time to afford a Borsalino? I mean, I can see the mob boss being able to afford one, but the police officer I question. And also I was interested from a cultural perspective. Would an Irish-American have worn an Italian made hat. I always thought historically Irish and Italian-Americans were kind of at odds with each other. Maybe from the movies I watch, my perception may be wrong, but that was always the way I understood things. Basically what I'd like to ask everyone's thoughts on is 1) does hat accuracy in modern day media bother you and do you think film/TV companies could do better 2) to people's knowledge what were the cultural preferences for hats and would people have bought within their own culture (ie would the Irish-Americans have bought Irish made hats or from companies that had Irish American ownership)?

 

[Rmccamey]

While you have a topic worthy of discussion between hat nerds like us, to 99.999999% of the population, hats are very small elements of fashion and work life. In the world of fashion, it is often more about "the look" rather than the technical details of hat construction, age of the hat, hat maker or provenance.

Other than some focused historical films, viewers see hats as very generic and pay no attention to the exact details as long as the hats are typical (or stereotypical) of the setting. In western movies, people expect to see cowboy hats. In many Scotch-Irish settings, people expect to see flat caps, newsboys and berets. In British-European films set in the late 1800s to WWII, people expect to see bowlers and homburgs.

Occasionally there will be a hat in a movie that is obviously out of place, but you and I are one of a handful who will ever notice. The biggest goof I usually see in films is a modern liner in what should be a very old hat.

When being complemented on a hat I am wearing, I used to say something about the age of the hat or where it was made. Over the years as I continued to watch people's eyes glaze over, I now just say "thank you".

 

[jlee562]

Don't expect too much in terms of accuracy. I mean, I've seen backwards hats on background actors before. The costume designer probably found an off the shelf Borso and called it a day. I thought Boardwalk Empire did a pretty decent job, though I am not at all an expert on period clothing. Several of the hats were vintage, if from a slightly later decade. Off the top of my head, one of Gyp's hats definitely had an old Royal Stetson liner. I also liked Public Enemies so much that I bought that Dillinger hat.

The inaccuracy doesn't really bother me except when it is something obviously out of place, I forgot which Chinese historical film I was watching, but it was like pre-WW1 and everybody had modern hats with pressed in creases. My other pet peeve being modern cowboy hats in westerns. Even though there is a relatively well known photo of the Dodge City Peace Commission, the bowler hat isn't really seen as a "cool" hat, despite it being historically accurate. Somehow I don't think Tom Mix would have been as popular with a Bat Masterson bowler. Kurt Russel's Wyatt Earp wouldn't have cut such a striking silhouette in the real Wyatt's hat. Which is the other thing, in addition to what Randy notes above about most people not knowing, sometimes the things we 'know' in the popular imagination aren't actually historically accurate to begin with and sometimes it's a deliberate character choice by the costume designer.

Side note: I knew Wyatt Earp was buried down the road in Colma, but never knew exactly where. I had a delivery a few weeks ago to another funeral home, so I looked it up, and it was literally across the street from my delivery. Unfortunately the cemetery was closed that afternoon! And apparently Levi Strauss is also buried there.

 

[GHT]

While you have a topic worthy of discussion between hat nerds like us, to 99.999999% of the population, hats are very small elements of fashion and work life. In the world of fashion, it is often more about "the look" rather than the technical details of hat construction, age of the hat, hat maker or provenance.

Other than some focused historical films, viewers see hats as very generic and pay no attention to the exact details as long as the hats are typical (or stereotypical) of the setting. In western movies, people expect to see cowboy hats. In many Scotch-Irish settings, people expect to see flat caps, newsboys and berets. In British-European films set in the late 1800s to WWII, people expect to see bowlers and homburgs.

Generic verisimilitude (you've just learned a new word, verisimilitude means authentic and true,) generic verisimilitude is, as so eloquently pointed out, of no interest to audiences. The fact that movie makers create some absolute howlers, JFK comes to mind, and yet the film goes on to great acclaim, suggests that hat and other minor detail don't even make the professional film critics assessment, let alone Joe Public in the audience.

 

[Edward]

Don't expect too much in terms of accuracy. I mean, I've seen backwards hats on background actors before. The costume designer probably found an off the shelf Borso and called it a day. I thought Boardwalk Empire did a pretty decent job, though I am not at all an expert on period clothing. Several of the hats were vintage, if from a slightly later decade. Off the top of my head, one of Gyp's hats definitely had an old Royal Stetson liner. I also liked Public Enemies so much that I bought that Dillinger hat.

The inaccuracy doesn't really bother me except when it is something obviously out of place, I forgot which Chinese historical film I was watching, but it was like pre-WW1 and everybody had modern hats with pressed in creases. My other pet peeve being modern cowboy hats in westerns. Even though there is a relatively well known photo of the Dodge City Peace Commission, the bowler hat isn't really seen as a "cool" hat, despite it being historically accurate. Somehow I don't think Tom Mix would have been as popular with a Bat Masterson bowler. Kurt Russel's Wyatt Earp wouldn't have cut such a striking silhouette in the real Wyatt's hat. Which is the other thing, in addition to what Randy notes above about most people not knowing, sometimes the things we 'know' in the popular imagination aren't actually historically accurate to begin with and sometimes it's a deliberate character choice by the costume designer.

Side note: I knew Wyatt Earp was buried down the road in Colma, but never knew exactly where. I had a delivery a few weeks ago to another funeral home, so I looked it up, and it was literally across the street from my delivery. Unfortunately the cemetery was closed that afternoon! And apparently Levi Strauss is also buried there.

Yip, this.

Otherwise, on the point of "Irish Americans", the nature of diaspora traditions is something that rarely in my experience has a whole lot to do with actual tradition in the Old Country. Not that diaspora traditions are bad per se - but they are distinctly different. The Irish stereotype of the flat cap is just that, a stereotype. I've written about this at length somewhere elsewhere we discussed Irish hats on TFL, but in brief... Hat-wearing in Ireland wasn't significantly different than in Britain by the turn of the 20th century. After eight centuries of some extent of British rule on the island, consolidated with the creation of the Kingdom of Ireland in 1541 under King John, fashions had developed so in tandem with those of England that we didn't have anything amounting to a national costume or style of dress. Some specifics - the Aran sweater in traditional patterns was certainly around (though the notion of family patterns akin to 'family tartans' is a modern mythology, primarily sold to tourists looking for their Irish roots) - but nothing that was truly a distinctive national costume. The Irish kilt so beloved of the diaspora, for instance, was a deliberate bit of cultural appropriation from out Gaelic cousins in Scotland, a conscious choice made by a small minority during the Gaelic Revival of the latter half of the 20th Century, seeking a distinctly Irish - and non-English - look. All solid colours (most commonly the saffron as still worn by pipers in the Irish Defence Forces and the remaining Irish regiments of the British Army, though the latter also adorn their with applique shamrocks).

Anyhow, I digress... back to the hats. The oldest traditional hat in Ireland would be the caubeen (good article on it on the Beret project here https://beretandboina.blogspot.com/2009/09/irish-version-of-beret-caubeen.html ), not dissimilar to the Scottish balmoral. You'll never see one of these these days other than as part of either a kilted outfit, or a military uniform (again, worn by both Irish forces and some regiments in the British Army). More commonly, Irish hats when last a norm weren't much different than what you'd see across much of England. As per our neighbouring island, hat of choice was as often as anything impacted by class. All records of the time show flatcaps - particularly in this style, sported here later in life by Dublin playwright Sean O'Casey - were the most commonly seen style of hat among the working classes:

These were typically made locally, often out of locally sourced materials (commonly, but not exclusively tweed). They were commonly worn without much variance right up to my grandparents' generation in much the same way as they were a norm for much longer in the North of England than in the South were the climate is milder and fashionable young men were eschewing hats as early as the 30s. Those who were better off would be more likely to be seen in brimmed hats. As in England, the American style fedora / trilby (originally two words for the same style; the modern notion of a trilby and a fedora as distinctly different styles is an internet era reinterpretation) wasn't really seen until the turn of the 30s; in Ireland un the 20s those better off were more likely to be seen around town in a Lord's Hat, Homburg, or a bowler. (Black bowler hats now have a very specific politically slanted air to them across Ireland, but that is again a later development which only happened really after they were abandoned by all but, by and large, the Orange Order, who of course originally wore them for no particular reason beyond them being perceived as a dressier hat for march days.) For the long period that Ireland was within the union, Irish hatters would primarily have sourced brimmed hats from the significant hat industry in England (especially concentrated around the Manchester / Stockport area). Ireland's not really big enough to have competed with that. I've never been able to get a handle on how the Trade War with Britain (brought to and end by a 1938 understanding between deValera and Churchill, in the looming shadow of ww2) really impacted that, but that's another level.

The idea of a typical "Irish American" 'look' as involving a cap is of course partly Hollywood created, thanks to the likes of The Quiet Man (which, to be fair, actually gets it fairly right with what Wayne wears on his head), but also reflects what the Irish who emigrated to the New World wore off the boat. Typically these were the less well off, people shifting across the world looking for a better life for financial reasons (or escaping the devastation of the famine during that period and for some years afterwards). Some would have retained the caps, I imagine, as a signifier of identity, preserving that is aspic - but others would have certainly adapted, adopting local styles (whether caps or brimmed hats) in the new location. As with any diaspora group, though who felt more accepted tended to assimilate, while those who felt unwelcome would have tended to band together more, preserving their 'difference'.

I'm not aware of any particular historic differences between Ireland and Italy. Possibly an issue for some of those in Ireland who fought on the Allied side in ww2 and ended up in some of the Italian campaigns, but that would not have been mainstream (WW2 being post-partition and, as in the Great War, conscription not extending to the part of Ireland remaining in the Union). I suspect rivalries depicted in the average gangster picture are vastly more to do with loyalties involved wrt specific organised crime issues than to be as specific as any national-cultural animosity.

Managed to find the link - this is another thread where we discussed hats in Ireland in the period in more significant depth - useful pictures there for comparison.

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/vintage-hats-from-1920s-40s-ireland-question.109783/

 

[Rmccamey]

Thanks for sharing. It is always interesting to read about how the form and function of hats/headwear follow and adapt to the larger culture.

Yip, this.

Otherwise, on the point of "Irish Americans", the nature of diaspora traditions is something that rarely in my experience has a whole lot to do with actual tradition in the Old Country. Not that diaspora traditions are bad per se - but they are distinctly different. The Irish stereotype of the flat cap is just that, a stereotype. I've written about this at length somewhere elsewhere we discussed Irish hats on TFL, but in brief... Hat-wearing in Ireland wasn't significantly different than in Britain by the turn of the 20th century. After eight centuries of some extent of British rule on the island, consolidated with the creation of the Kingdom of Ireland in 1541 under King John, fashions had developed so in tandem with those of England that we didn't have anything amounting to a national costume or style of dress. Some specifics - the Aran sweater in traditional patterns was certainly around (though the notion of family patterns akin to 'family tartans' is a modern mythology, primarily sold to tourists looking for their Irish roots) - but nothing that was truly a distinctive national costume. The Irish kilt so beloved of the diaspora, for instance, was a deliberate bit of cultural appropriation from out Gaelic cousins in Scotland, a conscious choice made by a small minority during the Gaelic Revival of the latter half of the 20th Century, seeking a distinctly Irish - and non-English - look. All solid colours (most commonly the saffron as still worn by pipers in the Irish Defence Forces and the remaining Irish regiments of the British Army, though the latter also adorn their with applique shamrocks).

Anyhow, I digress... back to the hats. The oldest traditional hat in Ireland would be the caubeen (good article on it on the Beret project here https://beretandboina.blogspot.com/2009/09/irish-version-of-beret-caubeen.html ), not dissimilar to the Scottish balmoral. You'll never see one of these these days other than as part of either a kilted outfit, or a military uniform (again, worn by both Irish forces and some regiments in the British Army). More commonly, Irish hats when last a norm weren't much different than what you'd see across much of England. As per our neighbouring island, hat of choice was as often as anything impacted by class. All records of the time show flatcaps - particularly in this style, sported here later in life by Dublin playwright Sean O'Casey - were the most commonly seen style of hat among the working classes:

View attachment 675357

These were typically made locally, often out of locally sourced materials (commonly, but not exclusively tweed). They were commonly worn without much variance right up to my grandparents' generation in much the same way as they were a norm for much longer in the North of England than in the South were the climate is milder and fashionable young men were eschewing hats as early as the 30s. Those who were better off would be more likely to be seen in brimmed hats. As in England, the American style fedora / trilby (originally two words for the same style; the modern notion of a trilby and a fedora as distinctly different styles is an internet era reinterpretation) wasn't really seen until the turn of the 30s; in Ireland un the 20s those better off were more likely to be seen around town in a Lord's Hat, Homburg, or a bowler. (Black bowler hats now have a very specific politically slanted air to them across Ireland, but that is again a later development which only happened really after they were abandoned by all but, by and large, the Orange Order, who of course originally wore them for no particular reason beyond them being perceived as a dressier hat for march days.) For the long period that Ireland was within the union, Irish hatters would primarily have sourced brimmed hats from the significant hat industry in England (especially concentrated around the Manchester / Stockport area). Ireland's not really big enough to have competed with that. I've never been able to get a handle on how the Trade War with Britain (brought to and end by a 1938 understanding between deValera and Churchill, in the looming shadow of ww2) really impacted that, but that's another level.

The idea of a typical "Irish American" 'look' as involving a cap is of course partly Hollywood created, thanks to the likes of The Quiet Man (which, to be fair, actually gets it fairly right with what Wayne wears on his head), but also reflects what the Irish who emigrated to the New World wore off the boat. Typically these were the less well off, people shifting across the world looking for a better life for financial reasons (or escaping the devastation of the famine during that period and for some years afterwards). Some would have retained the caps, I imagine, as a signifier of identity, preserving that is aspic - but others would have certainly adapted, adopting local styles (whether caps or brimmed hats) in the new location. As with any diaspora group, though who felt more accepted tended to assimilate, while those who felt unwelcome would have tended to band together more, preserving their 'difference'.

I'm not aware of any particular historic differences between Ireland and Italy. Possibly an issue for some of those in Ireland who fought on the Allied side in ww2 and ended up in some of the Italian campaigns, but that would not have been mainstream (WW2 being post-partition and, as in the Great War, conscription not extending to the part of Ireland remaining in the Union). I suspect rivalries depicted in the average gangster picture are vastly more to do with loyalties involved wrt specific organised crime issues than to be as specific as any national-cultural animosity.

Managed to find the link - this is another thread where we discussed hats in Ireland in the period in more significant depth - useful pictures there for comparison.

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/vintage-hats-from-1920s-40s-ireland-question.109783/