Don’t accuse The Wall Street Journal of being behind the times. They’ve been on top of the hat-trend forever — in fact, the paper acknowledges, it’s already “old hat to hipsters in areas like Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who started wearing fedoras, rounded derby hats and, in warmer weather, straw hats, more than two years ago.” Hipsters, please. You think you can get one over on the Journal? But now that this trend is going mass, things are getting pretty tense out there. “Today, confusion over the rules of hat wearing is leading to some awkward situations.”
So just how uncomfortable are things? Take Eric Soler of Hackensack, New Jersey, who went into a bar in Hoboken with a hat on his head, only to be told to take it off. Says Soler, “‘I’m not wearing a baseball cap or a ski hat, I’m wearing an $80 fedora!’” It was confusing. Soler had $80 in disposable income that he chose to spend on a hat — why do the rules still apply to him?
Soler could take a page from fellow fedora-wearer Luis Quaresma, who writes his own rules of hatiquette.
Trust us, Quaresma, we want you to take it off.
Discovering Hats, a New Generation Brims With Anxiety Over Etiquette [WSJ]
