Dinosaurs and Badgers Thursday. . .

 

A dinosaur pocket square (a nod to our son's continuing fascination with the beasts) and some socks featuring my Alma Mater's mascot Mr. Bucky Badger.  A warm double-breasted navy polo coat, schoolboy scarf (University College, Dublin stripes), and the hat for this week top off today's attire nicely.  

I am home once again as I write this, but remain dressed thusly for a 3pm meeting via our old friend Zoom. 

Five similar fur fedoras are now in the rotation, in various dark tones though not black, and I wear a different one each week.  The mistake a lot of guys make, when I see photos shared in online fora, is in wearing their hats straight across the face, akin to an Amish farmer.  

No, no, no.  If you're going to wear such a hat, commit to it, and wear your chapeau to one side at a jaunty angle.  It also helps if you reshape it carefully with some judicious rolling and careful rumpling to make it yours and impart just the right attitude instead of that 21st century "brand new just out of the box" look.  

This is another area where hat guys seem to go wrong.  Their head wear always looks as though it is rarely worn and instead resides in a glass case in a museum display somewhere. Sure, I get it.  Good hats ain't exactly cheap.  But they are meant to be worn and enjoyed after all.

So, how do you pull off a genuine fedora in 2022?  Just watch any film noir from the 1940s and early 50s for a tutorial.  Think Widmark, Mature, MacMurray, plus a host of other A- and B-list male actors of the era.  And then of course there is the master himself.  Humphrey Bogart.  

There are also lots of period TV series (Netflix, PBS, Hulu, etc.), usually though not always British, where the actors get it right when it comes to classic men's hats.  Consider those a valuable secondary source for nailing how to wear a fedora.

Now, I realize that there is a faction out there, which holds the opinion that only "douches" (not my word) wear hats.  That may be, but my fedoras never fail to garner positive comments from a wide range of people, from students to 80-somethings.  So, I am not sure that I buy into this myopic train of thought.

In short, I enjoy my hats, and if a few others do too, enough to share their appreciation with me now and then, so much the better.  

But you've got to own it.  Timid anxiety and sneaking around the peripheries of daily life ain't the way.  If you're going to dress with intention and leave the house looking more presentable than 99% of the people you will encounter most of the time in our slovenly age, carry yourself well.  

Confidence is the unseen part of dressing with panache. 

-- Heinz-Ulrich