Bowler hats

I love my new bowler hat! Click here for a short history.

Hats had always denoted rank in society-for example, gentlemen wore top hats (and cocked hats before top hats) while the lower social strata wore cloth caps (picture Dickens' street urchins). Everyman (and woman too if she was so inclined to push the social-fashion envelope) was wearing a bowler. Whether the wearer was making a statement about his liberation, or being glib or ironic, the fact is that both the union man and the banker wore the same hat. Something important was being conveyed through this simple article of headwear. As each of us who has ever put on any hat knows, one cannot place this apparel article on one's head totally unselfconsciously. The bowler hat marked a change, and the "modern man" by wearing one, wanted the world to know that he was part of it.