All the talk of Cheney's chapeau got me thinking.
There's the obvious notion that he's channeling Snidely Whiplash, a fitting tribute for a man who always looks like he just got done dining on braised liberals. But the black fedora certainly fires on other cylinders. As our commenter Chesty La Rue says, there's the Jewish connection, making it a true classic, despite another Republican criminal, Jack Abramoff:
Perhaps, as an interesting story at Salon had it, Abramoff sported his Borsalino because of his faith, as a sign of true contrition. Perhaps he didn't fully comprehend that, to probaby 95% of Americans, the black fedora–and this is tragic, I think–says only "gangster." Cheney probably knew this perfectly well.
Many, many fedoras were in evidence at the inauguration–I even spotted a bright red one. I'm enough of an antiquarian to bemoan the loss of men's hats, replaced across the board by the omni-stupid baseball cap. So I am, on the one hand, happy that so many hats were in evidence. It's a small thing, even silly, to care about such stuff, but I do. So there.
The American trend of showing up at funerals in sports sandals just plain bothers me, for aesthetic reasons alone. I don't want to be grieving the loss of Aunt Agnes while staring at some dillhole's size 12 hairy toes. It's jarring in the worst way. And only in America, I'll wager, would you get such Frankenstein outfits as Abramoff's answer to bad fedora press:
I'd look worried too, Jack.
I have a closet full of hats. That is in part because, if I don a baseball cap, I look like this:
It's also probably because I spend a fair portion of my film-watching time deeply immersed in earlier days, often British ones (not Merchant Ivory over-mannered stuff, mind, but more along the lines of Foyle's War). And with a closet full of hats, in order to not put together such abominations as the above double-breasted eejit look, one must needs possess some measure of certainty about what goes with what.
So if the inauguration indicates that we're going to revive the wearing of hats for more formal occasions, which is perfectly fine by me, perhaps a brief reminder of the function of various hats would be in order. Even all those hat-wearers yesterday didn't fully realize that the fedora, though it often went with suits in the past, isn't really so formal. Kudos for doing it anyway, and nobody has (or even should have) the time to worry about things like "black lounge" dress versus morningwear versus suits to wear to divorce court, I'm sure.
But even our recent past points toward more classically accepted attire for inaugurations. Kennedy is often blamed for the demise of the de rigeur hat, but that's not entirely true–here's what he wore to his inauguration:
Top hats wouldn't fly these days, clearly. Cheney would then have looked even more like the robber baron he is at heart. But there are other options. There's the British cousin of the fedora, different only, perhaps, to connossieurs, the Trilby. There's the bowler or Derby hat, long the choice of Fleet Street businessmen and therefore more formal. And my personal favorite, Godfather and Kid Rock notwithstanding, the Homburg. It's also known as The "Anthony Eden" in the UK, because of the dapper Mr. Eden's also favoring it (see below). And Brad Pitt sported one in The Assassination of Jesse James, wearing it well. (Though with the recent justache thing, he may have wrecked any aesthetic credibility.) It's less formal than the top hat, but very formal nonetheless.
So anyhow. It's all good that the baseball cap may at long last be supplanted, keeping American males from being mistaken for schoolboys in Europe, but moving away from just the Capone-tinged fedora wouldn't hurt.
So there's my frivolity for the day. Go snap a brim, gentlemen and ladies. Just consider which brim to snap.
