Whither the Hat?

A friend of mine asked an interesting question not long ago: who killed the hat? I remember once seeing a picture of a USC football game from the 1940s, and every single man was wearing a fedora - a veritable sea of fedoras. It was incredibly chic and darling. Fast forward 60 years and it's almost impossible to wear a fedora without looking super douche baggy ala K. Fed or Pete Doherty.

I have a few theories about what stripped the hat of its status as a near mandatory accessory for both men and women:

1. The rise of the automobile. A streetcar will provide you with plenty of headroom for that striking fedora or adorable church hat, but a Studebaker will not. Also, people just aren't walking outdoors as much as they used to, so they have less need for protection from the sun and the cold.

2. The rise of home hair care. When my grandmother was my age, ladies would go to the beauty parlor once a week to have their hair washed and set. If you took good care of the style, it would last several days. And as your hair started to look less than fresh, you could pin it up and tuck it under a what? A hat. As home hair care became popularized and companies started selling salon quality shampoos to the general public, women could simply wash their tired-looking hair at home and have it looking every bit as shiny and spectacular as if they'd had it done at the parlor with the girls. No hat required.

3. The continuing sartorial slide into the realm of ultra casual. The rise of business casual and jeans on Friday is just the latest incarnation of a gradual trend toward the casual that has been slowly but steadily gaining traction for some time. When my mom was growing up in the 1960s, she and her mom would go to downtown LA to shop and they would ALWAYS wear gloves, matching shoes and handbag, and usually a hat. Along came the late 1960s and 1970s with their cultural backlash against conformity and corporate culture, and while we've reaped many benefits from that backlash, I would argue that fashion has never really recovered. I mean, can anyone think of any fashion trend of lasting significance and quality that emerged out of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture? I can name a few counterculture fashion trends that are arguably crimes against humanity, like macrame necklaces, tie dye, peasant blouses and bell bottoms. I can hear some of you piping up in the back to disagree with me, but you are wrong.