Hat-wearing is now a snub to authority

By Adrian Wooldridge

Historians have struggled to find the best shorthand description of the modern era. Is it the post-industrial age, because most people work in offices rather than factories? Or the post-modern age of growing scepticism about enlightenment rationality? Some even call it the post-truth age. I prefer to think of it as the post-hat age.

Hats used to be ubiquitous. They were symbols of social roles: kings wore crowns, bishops mitres, clerks bowlers and labourers cloth caps. They were also fashion statements: milliners like Miller Christie were some of the most celebrated fashionistas of their times. Hats left their mark on the British landscape with thriving hatmaking towns such as Luton and Stockbridge, and on the language with phrases such as “old hat”, “hat trick” and “mad as a hatter” (the chemicals used to make hats drove many hatmakers insane).