Homburg or Coke/Bowler Hat

[uppercase]

Look how nicely Toscanini's trousers drape!

Why can't we get that today??!

[Frederic Leighton]

It's probably true that bowlers and homburgs should only be worn by the locals. They are so specific to Britain, so culturally linked to GB, that I would not venture into that territory. [...] Too local. Too ethnic.

Dear Uppercase, let me share with you few bits of history of the homburg hat in Italy.

15 June 1869, night: the MP Cristiano Lobbia, in his younger years one of the Mille who fought at the side of Garibaldi, is attacked in via dell'Amorino in Florence, where the Parliament was in those early days of the Kingdom. Lobbia is ferociously hit on his head and stabbed three times in the chest. Few weeks before he had brought to the attention of the Parliament a case of corruption of some MP's; he could prove that at least 60 MP's, together with some bankers, controlled the Tobacco Monopoly and received money from private companies.

16 June: because of the aggression, Lobbia is unable to attend the official deposition in the Parliament.

17 June: the Parliament, through an Act of the King, stops all investigations and closes the case.

When a witness dies in mysterious circumstances and the main suspect of the attack is found dead in the river Arno, Lobbia is accused by the Government of arranging the aggression by himself with the help of fellow MP's. He is quickly found guilty.

Lobbia enters the Parliament wearing the same bowler hat he was wearing the night of the aggression, showing a big break in its centre, where the bat hit. Lobbia's popularity increases further and a local hat maker starts making bowler hats that have a crease in the middle; he calls them "Lobbia hats" (alla Lobbia) and that's still the way Italians call them 150 years later.

[uppercase]

That's very interesting FL!!

I did not know that there was a history in Italy of men wearing bowlers.
I always only associated them with GB.

To learn also that they are useful in combat makes my felt hat seem inadequate in comparison!

[Luca]

I respectfully beg to differ, Uppercase. Although the specific model of derby hat known as a bowler was certainly first worn in the UK, in its time it became globally used and was, by some reckonings, one of the most if not the most popular type of hat, in the late 19th century (i.e., when all but the most formally dressed stopped wearing top hats).
So, from a historical standpoint, saying that only Brits should wear bowlers is akin to saying that only USians should wear jeans and only southern Italians should wear spalla camicia suits, etc.
It is, however, true that the UK was by far the last place where bowlers were worn "normally" (late 1960s - early 1970s), whereas in the rest of the world they had disappeared by the late 1940s, AFAIK.
before the Raiders of the Lost Ark movies, I cannot remember anyone, anywhere wearing a wide-brimmed fedora in my youth. Some old men wore some sort of Trilby and that was IT. Now, they are barely likely to register.

[Man at C&A]

To learn also that they are useful in combat makes my felt hat seem inadequate in comparison!

If I recall correctly the Coke was developed as country hat to afford some degree of head protection to gamekeepers when coming in to 'close contact' with poachers. It worked its way in to formal wear somewhat later.

By the time I started work in the City, the end of '83, they had gone almost completely. Very occasionally you'd see an elderly gentlemen wearing one, often as part of a stroller outfit, but even then it was obvious they were echoes of past generation. Probably non-execs up in town for their 'one day a month'. By the middle of the decade they'd disappeared.

Over the past few months I've started seeing a few Cokes about; I suspect more as post-modern irony than a genuine trend.

[Luca]

I have indeed been told by someone even older than I ( ) that as late as the early 1980s some crusty old gents in merchant banking would wear a 'stroller' on a daily basis. I b'lieve that up to the time it has an actual 'floor', the London Stock Exchange required 'hard' collars. Another fusty old colleeague was 'sent home to dress properly' for showing up at the Cable window in a soft collar in the late 1970s.

[uppercase]

Bowler?:

http://www.voxsartoria.com/post/1045749 ... toole-1966

[Frederic Leighton]

They will be useful here:
Correct Hats for the Occasion #1
Correct Hats for the Occasion #2

[Luca]

As they say in Estuary English: "Noyce one..."

[Frederic Leighton]

Edward VII in Sandringham (November 1902) - detail and the bigger picture.

[YoungLawyer]

On the subject of whether either of these hats have become costume: only last week, at a court in Essex, about half-an-hour from London, I spotted in the same robing room two strollers, a bowler, and two homburgs. All worn by barristers quite naturally and without any trace of irony, but rather through regular habit (certainly this was not part of the "vintage scene").

I think that the stroller and the bowler could easily be costume outside a very narrow context, and to me that context seems to be (without inventing "rules") zone 1 in London for a few formal occasions, one of the university cities on formal events, a large cathedral close, again on formal occasions, or the criminal law. Having written that, I only wear a bowler a handful of times a year, if that, and I wouldn't be comfortable wearing a bowler outside these areas. Personally, I wouldn't be comfortable wearing a stroller anywhere.

A Homburg, however, seems to present no problems at all, and seems a very useful hat for a wide variety of occasions, and I'm very tempted to purchase one myself. Can anyone recommend a type with a narrow brim to suit a thinner face? Frederic, any recommendations?

[bond_and_beyond]

As regards hats, this one showed up in my FB feed recently (I am sure many of you have seen this before) and I couldn't help myself posting:




BB

[davidhuh]

[2025899]

The cream of the jest.

[uppercase]

The above is true: it is tough to look good in a fedora.
I cannot. My face doesn't work.
But the good folks at Lock steered me into something reasonable for a long, narrow face.
A low crown trilby.
I'm OK with it. The best I can do. And I do enjoy wearing a classic hat. Even though I am not Bogart.