Straw Hat Day

Yesterday, May 15, was Straw Hat Day, the day when hat retailers in the US traditionally encouraged men to put away their warm felt hats and switch to cooler straw ones.

I have a classic Panama hat on order, but it has to come from Ecuador and so it didn't get here in time. Instead, I wore my vintage Cavanagh boater to mark the occasion.

The boater, or skimmer as it's also called, was once the standard summer hat for well-dressed men, for at least the first three decades of the 20th century. Boaters were worn with everything from beach wear to tuxedos (when accessorized with a black ribbon). A photo from 1912 of the congregation of Capitol Hill Baptist Church standing outside the new church building that was under construction shows nearly every one of several dozen men wearing boaters. In fact, if you look closely enough at the Paris 1919 cover below, you can see that while the heads of government are wearing top hats to go with their formal frock coats, their aides behind are wearing boaters with their suits.

Travelers returning from abroad made the Panama hat gradually more popular, and Panamas eventually replaced boaters as the standard summer hat. In these hatless days, the boater is now relegated to a costume piece, worn mostly by barbershop quartets and actors reprising Dick Van Dyke's role in Mary Poppins. Like the morning coat, the tailcoat, and stiff collars, the boater is on life support in the world of menswear. However, with the resurgence of hat wearing in general, perhaps the boater will experience a new era of acceptability as a legitimate alternative in headwear for men with style.