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People still wear hats, but 100 years ago wearing a hat was literally as much a thing as wearing shoes when you go outside. It all ended around the end of WW2 b
by rkachowski 5y ago
People still wear hats, but 100 years ago wearing a hat was literally as much a thing as wearing shoes when you go outside. It all ended around the end of WW2 but there seems to be no real historical consensus why.
- garmaine 5y agoCars. It ended when people stopped taking public transit and started driving. Try wearing a fedora in a small 1950’s car and you’ll see why.
- lqet 5y agoI don't know. When I was a kid in the 90ies, it was still common to see older men drive a car wearing a hat. On the other hand, if your car is really not high enough to wear a hat, is it really that inconvenient to take it off when you enter? Men also stopped wearing hats in countries where owning a car was the exception. This theory also implies that somehow, before the car, mobility with a hat on was universally possible. Try riding a bike with fedora. Or a horse.
- denton-scratch 5y agoMy father used to curse men who drove while wearing a hat. The hat restricts your field of vision.
- jrockway 5y agoI feel like cramming yourself into a subway car with a fedora is equally unpleasant. At least in an automobile you can just put the hat in the passenger's seat or something.
- webmaven 5y agoWorth noting that in the 1940s cars still had enough headroom to let you keep your hat on (eg. https://static.messynessychic.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/CAB1.jpg https://static.messynessychic.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06...), but people started getting taller and cars shorter in the subsequent decades.