Among the ranks of these Viking re-enactors, one make-believe Norseman is not quite like the others. Too much herring, and not enough pillaging, has left him out of shape, while his askew helmet, with an extra wide nose-guard, adds to his loveable-misfit charm. Izzy can’t help but think that this is what Obelix would look like in Viking armor.
From the trailers for The Spirit, it seems that the forthcoming movie is about some kind of masked comic-book hero in a fedora and trenchcoat. The film’s true star, however, is a red tie forever flapping in the wind.
The author of books such as My Life Among the Deathworks and The Triumph of the Therapeutic, Philip Rieff was a formidable conservative cultural critic and a formidable conservative dresser. Here he is in a custom pinstriped peak-lapelled single-breasted suit, pocket square, fawn waistcoat, watch fob, and homburg hat. They don’t make professors like that anymore—for which lazy, fearful students should be thankful.
Izzy was blissfully unaware of the trend of men wearing pantyhose, until a reader sent him this article:
The trend for straight men to invade female fashion territory is seemingly unstoppable. Even before manscara and guyliner there were man bras, or manzieres. Now there are umpteen websites for male nylons. One, e-MANcipate!, describes itself as “a project to accelerate the acceptance of male pantyhose as a regular clothing item” with tips on how to deal with snagging (a dab of clear nail varnish, I find, fellas, and do watch those shoe buckles).
Surely you don’t need Izzy to tell you that “mantyhose,” even with a special “male comfort panel,” is stretching things too far. They only time a gentleman should ever be caught with hose on is when he has pulled a pair over his head to rob a grocery store for diapers.
Of all the items on eBay Izzy has missed bidding on, this Hackett necktie is truly the one that got away. Featuring a bowler hat and umbrellas arranged like a skull and crossbones, it is the ultimate accoutrement of the Anglophile dandy.
The accusation, now frequently heard, of “cowboy politics” stems from the iconic image of Ronald Reagan as an all-American denim-clad horseman. But it turns out that, while Reagan had long enjoyed riding horses, his cowboy attire originated as a bit of showmanship:
In 1966, a local reporter from KTIX in San Francisco wanted to do a segment on horseback with the candidate for governor of California. Lyn Nofziger, Mr. Reagan’s press secretary, accompanied the reporter and was shocked to see his candidate in jaspers [jodphurs?] and English riding boots.
“When he changed into his riding clothes, he came out. And I looked at him—and he was not yet the governor—and I said, ‘You can’t do that,’” Mr. Nofziger recalled. “He said, ‘This is the way I always ride.’ I said, ‘This is not the purpose of that. It’s to get votes. They’re going to think you look like a sissy!’ He’s a great cowboy, looking at him. He played a cowboy in movies.
You can find photos of Reagan in his more aristocratic, English riding-wear here.
While strolling around town today, Izzy saw a gentleman unknowingly drop some papers from his wallet. Doing no less than should be expected, Izzy spoke up and said, “Sir, I think you might have dropped something.” The absent-minded gentleman thanked Izzy, and bent down to pick up his belongings. As he looked up, he gave Izzy a full look and remarked, “Classy hat.” Such is the power of the fedora.
Rubén Albarrán, lead singer of the popular Mexican rock band Café Tacuba, nearly always wears a white fedora/mask to feign anonymity, perhaps even that of a luchadore. (This is even more obvious when he wears his bizarre coxcomb cap.) But Izzy can’t help but thinking of Dumb Donald, the lunkheaded character from the TV show Fat Albert who literally pulled he wool over his eyes in his permanent pink stocking hat.
There are only two ways to wear an open collar under a jacket: 1) firm and erect, 2) limp and flaccid. Someone, please get Mr. Clooney some Viagra for his shirt.
It’s not exactly a scarlet letter, but a Spanish debt collection company has been using a very odd tactic to shame deadbeat debtors into paying up:
If more confirmation were needed of the funereal state of Spain’s economy, it can be found in the shape of The Debt Collector in Top Hat and Tails.
That’s a translation into English of “El Cobrador del Frac,” the name of a company that specializes in sending out men dressed like extras from a 1930s Fred Astaire movie to humiliate debtors into paying up. Its business is booming.
“At the start of the year we noticed demand was increasing,” said Juan Carlos Granda, head of El Cobrador del Frac’s international department.
[...]
Mr. Granda refers to the top hats and tails, whose appearance has unnerved so many Spanish debtors, as the company “uniform.”“We send collectors in uniform and collectors without uniform. It depends on how the debtor reacts. If we need to do it to collect a debt, we send a collector wearing top hat and tails, so his debt attracts more attention,” he said.
The ethics of public shaming aside, Izzy is dismayed to see a look that was once was the epitome of elegance being debased by such negative association. It ought to make every hatter mad, and Señor Cacahuete nuts.
With their matching khakis, polo shirts, and baseball hats, these Chinese Olympic security personnel look more prepared for a golf course than a terrorist hunt. But the uniform does succeed insofar as it offsets the menace created by the presence of guard dogs.
Having read about the sartorial choices of New York detectives not too long ago, Izzy was pleased to read an article about the Atlanta homicide squad’s fondness for fedoras:
The first fedoras are usually black, sometimes brown, almost always made of fine, soft fur felt. They wear Stetson and Dobbs, names that have been around for decades as institutions of haberdashery.
Atlanta police homicide detectives like their traditions the way they like their hats. Classy. Meaningful.
Every one of the 16 homicide detectives has at least one fedora. It’s a solemn, stylish reward the first time he or she solves a case, paid for and delivered by the more experienced officers.
“It makes you feel like you’re part of something,” says Detective Mark Cooper, part of the unit since 2002. “Once you get it in your blood, you don’t want to do anything else.”
[...]
The fedora was a part of a detective’s garb through the late 1950s, when the pinched-and-creased hat was in style. Many credit retired Atlanta police Lt. Danny Agan for bringing it back when he joined the unit in 1979, and his partner, Sgt. Charles Horton, for keeping it going. Fedoras were long out of fashion — they’re tough to wear with big hair and big collars — but Agan says it made him feel completely dressed. He bought his son, homicide Detective Danny Agan Jr., his first fedora, too.
“You dress the part, you dress like a detective, you get better results,” says the senior Agan, 55, of Douglasville, who retired five years ago. “It commands respect: Who’s showing up to take charge of this mess?”
Even when Agan left the unit for a few years, snappy dressers continued the style.
In the early 1990s, it became less fashion statement, more symbol. Solve a case, earn a hat.
It was only in the early 2000s, though, that detectives started chipping in to buy the first hat. Now, it’s often presented at dinner or a meeting, Lt. Keith Meadows says, to catch its wearer off-guard.
Detectives say the head gear is popular enough now that people living around a crime scene know a homicide is suspected when a man in a fedora steps out of a car.
“When you see a fedora on TV, you know what the story is going to be about,” says Rick Linkwald, owner of the Executive Shop, a downtown clothing and hat store.
You can tell the police officers by their walk, he says. When they shop at this store, they gravitate to black fur felt Stetsons with wide brims and brown-and-red feathers, priced at $159. First-time hat buyers usually stare in the mirror and admit how much they look like their fathers and grandfathers; it’s not so different for detectives following a tradition instead of a trend.
“They want to dress like guys they admire,” Linkwald says.
All of this is well and good, assuming the brims are not too large, but Izzy was dismayed to see (in the photo above) how the detectives maltreat their fedoras. As any haberdasher will tell you, a fine hat is to be placed on its crown when not being worn so as not to warp the brim.
