Men Wearing Hats

The glory days of hat-wearing are long past; the de rigeur inclusion of a chapeau as part of workaday dress while outside has bone the way of the stick shift and the bustle.  Only in a few sects are ladies expected to wear hats in church, while in years past women and girls were expected to wear wimples, then elaborate expressions of millinery, or even remarkably ugly beanies in the case of schoolgirls.

Then there was that badge of lowly status, the freshman beanie.  That got lost somewhere in the 1950's or 1960's amid the Precambrian ooze of college life along with males singing "Boola Boola."

No, sumptuary laws regarding headgear are passé.  A man wearing a fedora or a western hat is seen as making a definite statement of individuality, as men's hats are seen as optional now except in the case of military uniforms.  So what do many men of various ages do?  They wear those baseball hats, often in rakish angles!

However, there are the secret places where men still enjoy wearing exotic headgear.  When they're football fans, like this proud Viking:

Or actively coaching.  The rule here is that if you're a football coach, you can get away with wearing anything.

Or are a world-class Party Animal:

Or are traveling South of the Border, down Mexico way:

Or a politician:

Or are a sk8r:

I'm glad that hat-wearing has become optional rather than mandatory.