Posted on 05/13/2012 7:42:53 PM PDT by Eyes Unclouded
...
So what happened? Why did guys stop wearing headgear in midcentury America?
The turning point, most people say, was John F. Kennedy's inauguration. Before Kennedy, all presidents wore top hats on their first day at work. Kennedy brought one, but hardly ever put it on. Fashionistas say Kennedy, one of our most charismatic presidents, made hats un-happen. And, chronologically speaking, after JFK, guys everywhere, even balding ones like astronaut John Glenn, went topless.
But I am the son of a hat designer. And my father, Allen S. Krulwich, had a different explanation. The president who de-hatted America, he thought, was Dwight Eisenhower.
Here's my dad's logic.
In the 1950s and this was one of Ike's grand accomplishments he built a vast highway system across America. Interstates went up everywhere. Cities extended roads, turnpikes, highways, and suburbs appeared around every major city. People, instead of taking a bus, a tram, a train to work, could hop into their new Chevy or Ford and drive.
Before Eisenhower, many more people used public transportation. After Eisenhower, they used a car. That, my father thinks, created the critical Head-To-Roof Difference.
A person of average height standing in a bus, tram or subway car has, roughly, three feet between the top of his head and the roof.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
Dali was made about him.
He did the first hologram using Alice and a bazillion dollars worth of diamonds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVhi7gi7_OA
Then Alice ‘hologrammed’ himself from the US to a UK concert.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ynLVO6l0w
Can you think of anyone Dali would’ve “gotten” more than Alice?
;D
Dali was *mad* [dammit] about him.
He did the first hologram using Alice and a bazillion dollars worth of diamonds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVhi7gi7_OA
Then Alice ‘hologrammed’ himself from the US to a UK concert.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ynLVO6l0w
Can you think of anyone Dali would’ve “gotten” more than Alice?
;D
[not sure how he keeps that thing on his head...pop rivets, mebbe]
I knew you’d like that...:)
And bikers.
Those friggin’ Harley hats are nailed to hubby’s head and if I had ~his~ full, thick, wavy hair I’d rule the world.
;D
Hat hair. I have fine hair. I don’t look human after I uncover, even with a crew cut.
Here in L.A., a lot of young men are wearing flat caps or trilbys.
I had the same dream after being out 20+ yrs.
This guy ruined it for everyone else.
-PJ
I think that's right. I had been hatless all my life until I started walking my daughters home from school. This is in DC, with subtropical summers. Within a year, I was wearing hats. I also went seasonal on suits, although I never got all the way back to summer whites.
I think what killed the hat was mass suburbanization, which put most people into their cars for commutes. If your exposure to the outdoors is limited to the walk in from the parking lot, hats are an unnecessary encumbrance. People who still spend quality time outside still wear them.
When I was a kid in the fifties, older males “dressed up” when they went outside. Except for when they were working around the house. If you look at photos of crowd scenes from the early twentieth century, you can see that most of the men wore suits and ties and hats. But by the end of the fifties, as I recall with my sometimes faulty memory, it seems only the males sixty and older really dressed up for casual occasions. I never saw old guys in bermuda shorts. Times change.
Nobody wears spats anymore, WHY???
Let's talk about this, people, it's much more interesting than talking about the Recovery That Never Was...
“The chicken or the egg”. When men began to stop wearing hats, the early 60’s then the automakers began to lower the tops. Hats lost there luster in the 50’s. Actors and rock and roll stars set the pace. James Dean( rebel without a cause), Elvis, etc. This was the beginning of the LOSS OF “CLASS” in society
Modishly hatless men are the reason for the upsurge in skin cancer!
LOL! He wasn’t called “Give ‘em he!!, Harry” for nothing!
That's a bit of it.
I have a fedora that I really like to wear. Most places have no place to hang your hat like a civilized human being.
Mrs. Z really hated Larry the Cable Guy as well. Then she watched a couple of episodes of his “Only In America”. His apparently genuine love of his country warmed her up to him.
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