Why don’t we wear hats anymore?

The only hat that is not perceived as one statement piece, is stripped of beauty and creativity.

This is a chronicle. Any opinions expressed in the text are the responsibility of the writer. If you want to send a feature proposal, you can read how here.

This year’s Met Gala is fast approaching. In connection with it, I started thinking about last year’s gala, when Dua Lipa showed up in Karl Lagerfeld’s classic Chanel dress. The same dress that supermodel Claudia Schiffer wore in 1992. But there was one small – or perhaps huge – difference: The matching hat was scrapped.

From being the dominant part of a wardrobe for several centuries, the hat has lost its place as an indispensable item when leaving home.

Fashion historian Ragnhild Brochmann recently wrote in an article in A magazine about why you feel nice and free with the hat you bought on holiday abroad, but have a tense relationship with it when you get home. The revelation and conclusion is obvious: We have entered a hatless era.

More than a headdress

Throughout the ages, beautiful design hats with different expressions have abounded, some so beautiful that it is natural to call them works of art.

The partial discontinuation of the hat is quite special, for the hat has been more than a useful headgear. It has been an object to express what we feel and how we recognize each other.

The hat has been a symbol of gaining respect, but also of showing respect by taking it off.

Maria Rolland Gagnat

Master’s student in history at the University of Oslo. Specializing in women, clothing and consumption.

And with the opposite sign: In the past, if someone wanted to make a fuss, the person was often tipped off. It didn’t take much to start a fight.

There has therefore also been self-respect in taking care of one’s hat. It is a garment that has shown and reflected identity, social status, gender and mood. It has done so over several centuries.

How is it that the garment that has survived the test of time right up to our days suddenly went out of fashion?

The hat through the ages

We do not know exactly how old the hat is, but archaeological findings do not rule out that the hat was introduced early in human history, out of consideration for wind and weather.

From the time of the Roman Empire, on the other hand, there is a more detailed description of hats, headgear and traditions connected to them. We know that the hat symbolized status, profession and role in society.

Iconic, for example, is the “corona triumphalis”, which was used by both the Greeks and the Romans, and was made of a laurel wreath. The laurel tree was sacred, and the leaves symbolized wisdom and victory. Field lords would adorn themselves with such during a triumph when they had won over the “barbarians” and marched into the city as heroes.

The joy of fine hats and ornaments over the hair continued to march into the Middle Ages. This was, among other things, immortalized by the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer in «Legend of Fair Women” (1384), where he describes women with gold in their hair.

The Renaissance was also not the time for moderate hat fashion, on the contrary. Princess Lucrezia Borgia (b. 1480-d. 1519), who was known as the heart of the center of artistic and cultural life in Ferrara, is said to have owned a hat made of black satin, decorated with gold leaves and flowers, and with a hem which was supposed to look like flaming pure gold, together with a pearl necklace that stood in style.

Up until the 19th and 20th centuries, hats continued to be an important element in the world of fashion. For fine ladies, large, elegant hats with veils and flowers were an indispensable part of the outfit.

And although fashion during the 20th century moved towards a more minimalist look, the hat was still relevant.

After all, we haven’t completely stopped wearing hats. The most obvious one to highlight is the baseball hat or cap, which was launched in 1860. It can give associations to the classic worker’s peaked hat. The modern caps look more or less exactly the same and are all equally boring. The shape is largely the same, but you get them in different colors and with different emblems.

Scrapping the hat as a class struggle?

At one point or another, the hat fell off both the pedestal and the head. Some believe that the hat’s dramatic exit happened almost overnight sometime in the 1960s.

That this was to signal the leveling of class differences in society is not inconceivable. Perhaps they wanted to signal equality or reflect a less formal and authoritarian social structure, which the young people of the 60s rebelled against, among other things by letting their hair grow and throwing debris at the tasseled hat.

Perhaps the hat’s lost status can be explained as part of the class struggle. But then I will highlight how today’s apparently neutral appearance of caps hides the same characteristics that promote inequality: namely through their emblem.

We show who we want to be and are associated with through the brands behind the logos. It could be the logo of your favorite football team, the borough you’re from, political affiliation – or the Ralph Lauren polo man, if you feel like showing off that you’ve got a little extra cash.

The hat makers have long since been replaced by factories that mass-produce unnecessarily many copies of this hat with a parasol in front. Other simple hats that are also alive and well, such as the alpine hat and the sixpence, are for those particularly interested.

I don’t hate caps, but I hate that it has become the only hat you can wear without it being perceived as a statement piece.

We have thus managed to remove the hat from beauty and creativity, but those of its characteristics that communicate what separates us from each other, such as money or place of residence, exist in the form of the labels we literally stick on our foreheads.

I wish we surrounded ourselves with objects that show that we are individuals living lives that don’t fit into one formula to express ourselves.

And caps really don’t suit everyone!