As a part of my personal fashion, I enjoy wearing hats. I think they can lend an old-fashioned charm and/or a certain dapperness to an outfit. I enjoy perusing and wearing a variety of hats, from vintage trilbys, fedoras and derbys to the more modern military-style baseball caps, and others.
I like the fact that hats are making a come back in the modern fashion arena, in particular the modernized versions of classic vintage hats like the trilby and fedora. I'm sure there are others on this forum who would agree it's a promising and welcome trend. These hats have seen a particular rise in popularity thanks to their adoption by certain internet and RL celebrities. Prime internet examples would be the trilby-wearing Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation fame, and the fedora-inclined Linkara from Atop the Fourth Wall.
However, even as these classic-era hats have regained popularity, the social rules of hats have fallen by the wayside, it seems.
Typically in the old days, the social convention (at least for men) was that hats were to be worn outside, and inside if it were a open area (such as a train station, hotel lobby or post office) but not inside closed areas (such as a house, in a church, or restaurant). You tipped your hat by slightly lifting it, or touching your fingers to the brim as a sign of respect to passing ladies and other strangers, and took it off when amongst friends, for a funeral procession or when the national anthem plays. For ladies, it was acceptable to keep your hat on except in your own home, for the most part.
Nowadays when I see young men wearing hats, especially classics, these rules have been forgotten, and aren't exactly followed consistently. Whilst some do enjoy the "cool" gesture of tipping hats in polite gestures, they flout the need to take off the hat indoors. Personally, I think it looks quite pretentious, even before considering how rude it is. It makes someone look aloof and above all the uncovered heads. One first-year university student I met refused to take his trilby off when sitting down at a table in a bar to eat. That really irked me.
What does everyone else think? Do you wear a hat as part of your look? If so, what does it look like, and how do you wear it? Should we return to old etiquette?
