Explaining why a fashion trend diedfrom @alextwma

Transcript

Alright, look at any photo from the 1920s. Every single man is wearing a hat. Not some, all of them. Going outside without one was genuinely unthinkable, but today almost nobody wears one. So what exactly happened? You see wearing a hat was almost a fashion requirement. In 1900 The US sold more hats than there were adult men in the country. Rich or poor, stepping outside bareheaded was like stepping outside without shoes. And then over just a few decades it almost completely vanished. But unlike what many believe tier wasn't a single dramatic event that killed the hat. There were several influences arriving at once. Believe it or no, the first reason was the car. For most of history people spent their time walking or rank open air transport rank the hat did a real job. It shielded you from the sun and rain and good. But as enclosed cars became the norm, low roofs made tall hats awkward and people were suddenly spending their days inside a vehicle instead of out in the elements. The hat's practical purpose started to loosen. Central heating finished that job. The same reason scarves and gloves faded too. Once your home, office, and car were all warm, you didn't need to bundle up at all. Plus, it was a custom to remove your hat indoors anyways no that transition was seamless. Then came the wars. Millions of men spent years in mandatory military headgear and came home done with it all. A 1947 survey found that nearly one in five men who'd stopped wearing hats blamed being forced to wear one in the army. To them, the hat had come to mean an obligation. That alone tainted its stylistic value. And finally, the culture flipped. The 1960s brought a generation that wanted to look nothing like their parents and hats were one of the many things they were rebelling against. That concept of dressing formal, traditional, and buttoned up. Icons like Elvis and the Beatles were emblematic of this movement, bareheaded and free, and most importantly, cool. So no single event killed the hat. What actually happened is stranger and it highlights the reason many things fall out of fashion today. The entire world that required a hat, the open air, the walking, the cold rooms, the formality tier conformity was killed first. Changes in fashion are often worst fashion are often a byproduct of changes in culture. The world that needed the hat faded and the hat went with it.