Trend Spotting: Fedoras
About two months ago I suddenly looked up and realized that 10 people in the bar I was standing in were wearing some form of prohibition era hat. Fedoras and pork pies went out of style with Kennedy, why the hell are they making a comeback now. Now I have no real place to be talking about fashion since I have worn a t shirt and jeans every day since I was born, but this hat thing is a bit odd. I didn’t really think that much of it until I went to Urban Outfitters the other day and the store completely freaked me out. In this one store they seem to have every item on earth that will make you hip. For me being cool should be about finding weird things from all over and appropriating them into your style. You find a thrift shirt and some vintage belt and find a style that makes you unique. There are a lot of great things that I would want in Urban Outfitters but to see all that manufactured cool in one place made me feel a bit sick. They sell Holga cameras there for $70 dollars. They sell limited edition Nike Dunks. They sell books by Chuck: both Klosterman and Palahniuk. And of course they sell fedoras. They had about 10 different kinds so you can pretend you are unique and interesting. The chances are in a bar with 10 people wearing cheap hipster fedoras that maybe only one person will be wearing the exact one you bought. Every time I have brought this up with people wearing these hats they tell me they have had it for years… This may be true, but I didn’t notice. What I want to know is on exactly what day did this become part of the hipster uniform and why wasn’t I informed. But the main reason this all became a post is that on Halloween I asked my friend where she got her fedora; I was wondering if she was shopping at Urban Outfitters. Her reply? “I got it at Warped Tour for $10.” Remind me to shoot myself. The Fedora is officially the new trucker hat.
Anyway, I looked through my posted pictures from just September and October and I came up with 40 images of people wearing old timey hats. Several of the pictures have multiple people wearing the hats. These pictures come from just four parties. M, High Voltage, Trash and Six Six Sick. High Voltage was the most Hat Filled party, with Trash being the least filled. I only shot a few weeks of Six Six Sick so I didn’t get many shots, but I think they averaged 3 hats per party. Keep in mind that I did not intentionally shoot people with these hats, I was just looking through old galleries. Anyway, check out all 40 pictures of silly hats here.
I blame Kevin Fedora-line, Baby(and life in)shambles Pete D., and Madonna because somehow she is at the root off all that is fashion evil. I must admit, however, that although I am tragically UN-hip, I did recently become excited to find, in a vintage store, a gray Stetson for $40. Since I grew up in Danbury, Connecticut — former hat manufacturing capital of the world — I thought this would be a nice nod to my roots and perhaps make my father proud. Now, he’s just going to think I suck and am following all of the skinny-jeans-long-scarves-“this is not a plastic bag”- status hat trendies.
poop.
pardon typos. it’s hard to write with this damn hat on.
I forwarded this to a couple of people at work, and one of my friends responded with “Leave it to damn hipsters to ruin everything. If only people like me would
bring fedoras back, I would do it right.
Fedoras should:
a) not be smaller than your head like with those jackasses. If your ears
are sticking out and it is made of denim, chances are you wear it to play
kickball in Williamsburg while drinking PBRs on a Saturday.
b) should always sit on a bed of curls and ideally have some sort of utility
i.e. keeps the rain out. Tom Baker showed us how it was done.”