28 December, 2003

New hat

Despite some misgivings, I was persuaded to buy a broad-brimmed, Australian bush-style hat in the sales yesterday.  I like it, and I'm told it looks good, but I'm a little uncertain how often I'll wear it.  Certainly for camping and walking, but I'd like to wear it more often, in town.

I think it's about fifty years since it was fashionable to routinely wear a broad-brimmed hat. Close-fitting woollen hats and baseball caps are common, but more formal brimmed hats just aren't worn, at least by those under seventy. I'm not a person who particularly cares about fashion, but some styles undeniably make certain statements, which one has to acknowledge. Socks with sandals, white socks with black shoes and trousers, and shell-suits are simply to be avoided at all costs; brimmed hats occupy a grey area on the edge of unacceptability, which I'm nervous to explore.

There's a man I occasionally see around Lancaster, perhaps in his late twenties and a total stranger to me but distinctive in that he wears a brimmed hat. In a way I'd like to do the same, but I'm very aware that irrespective of whether it suits him, it makes him look eccentric, and not endearingly so.

[Update 18/02/08: fifty months later, I can report that I've worn the hat less than ten times.]