People of a certain age are reflecting on the changes COVID-19 will have on society.
In the area of fashion, hats are about to become a must-have item for many women. With no access to the clever stylist to camouflage the grey, and with most unwilling to try to do the job themselves, a hat will be a necessity.
What an interesting development. People who regularly wear hats are making a statement about themselves. Take cowboy hats, for example. You know exactly what you are encountering when you spot one of those.
What about the dapper older fellow in a fedora. Doesn't that just scream, "I'm sooo goood!"?
According to a Talkin' T-shirts blog, hats were most recently popular in the 1950s and are slowly coming back into style. COVID-19 is giving that trend a boost.
There was a time when wearing a hat was akin to putting on a coat or boots. It was a necessary part of everyone's ensemble when venturing out into public.
According to the blog, "through the 1800s, hats were a part of every dignified gentleman’s attire. A man would never depart from his home without a hat on his head. Hats were a symbol of class and occupation, from bowler hats worn by bankers and stockbrokers, to cloth caps sported by manual laborers.
"Up until the 1950s, hats in America represented a symbol of social status, working power, and a showy style for men, particularly in New York City. However, as global tensions increased, the hat trend faded as men traded in their felt fedoras for military helmets."
When women's hats were fashionable, they too made statements about the women wearing them.
Inside Out Style has a take on what different kinds of hat reflects about the wearer's character: creative – berets (I see my nephew Welshtyn in one); relaxed – baseball cap or beanie; dramatic – fedora (the only man I know who wears one has a dramatic nature); feminine – floppy boho straw hat; and dramatic – fur hat (doesn't quite fit my husband when he goes out in his fur hat with flaps to run the snowblower).
Many younger people wear different types of hats, but many sport tuques, which is odd to me, since my younger people resisted the wearing of such head coverings when they were kids. Tuques don't really make a statement, but maybe that's the statement in itself. "We're young, we're cool." And their heads are warm.
And then there is the ball cap. Universal, ubiquitous but still individualistic. You can tell a well-loved ball cap by its carefully shaped brim, the fact that it might be fraying and not always clean. The statement is, "This is my lid."
I have natural silver on top, so I won't have to hide the skunk look, but as my style grows longer it becomes less manageable. So, I'll be joining others in the hat wearing parade and I won't have to tell you too much more about myself when I say it will be a Rider cap.
