hat
hat, any of various styles of head covering. Hats may serve protective functions but often signify the wearer’s sensibility to fashion or serve ceremonial functions, as when symbolizing the office or rank of the wearer.
Hats of plant fibres are associated with the ancient rural traditions of Europe and Anatolia. An early statue of Mercury shows his hat to be of finely plaited straw. Artisans of classical Athens and Rome usually wore conical caps with egg-shaped crowns made of felt. The material that protruded under the band evolved into a brim. In Rome this cap was a badge of the plebeian class; a slave being freed was presented with such a cap. Men of the upper classes usually went hatless except in bad weather or when hunting or traveling. The emperor Augustus Caesar, in his old age, set a new fashion by never going out without a hat.
In Egypt caps and simple kerchiefs were worn over the head and brow, falling in a drape to the shoulders. Wigs of human hair or sheep’s wool were also worn as protection from the sun. Helmet caps were ornamented with symbols of rank: the asp for kingly power, the feather for sovereignty.
In the early medieval era city people wore hats usually made of cloth, such as the chaperon, a loose hood for both men and women. Throughout the Middle Ages women of all classes wore veils or draperies hiding the hair and framing the face. During the 15th century women’s hats showed increasing elaboration. The hennin, or steeple headdress, was fashionable in France and Flanders between 1460 and 1480. Women also wore the turban and the so-called butterfly headdress of transparent gauze raised above the head by means of long pins.
During the 16th century the hood became popular for women. In the 17th century Europeans wore hats indoors as well as out. Two main types of hats predominated among men in the 17th and 18th centuries. One was a low-crowned hat with a broad brim that was turned up, or cocked, on three sides (the tricorne) or two sides (the bicorne). This type was favoured by aristocrats, cavaliers, and gallants. The other type was a stiff, high-crowned, round hat that was worn by Dutch burghers and by English and American Puritans, among others. European and American women in the 18th century sometimes wore the calash, a great bonnet that resembled the extension top of a calèche, or French carriage.
About 1760 the silk top hat originated in Florence, appearing in England in 1810. This stiff, round hat with a cylindrical crown replaced the tricorne as the standard attire for gentlemen after the French Revolution. Soon other types of hats were adopted by the expanding middle classes. The bowler, named for the London hatter who invented it and known as a derby in the United States, was introduced in 1850. Cloth caps with visors became standard attire for workingmen and boys. During the last quarter of the century, the soft felt hat became popular in the United States. In much of the West men and women largely ceased wearing hats in the 1960s, and hairstyles became more important.
In India the so-called Gandhi cap (a type frequently seen on Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru), the fez, and variously styled turbans are in general use. In Latin America and in the southwestern United States, the sombrero—a high-crowned hat of felt or straw with a wide brim rolled up at the edges—is popular. An adaptation with a smaller brim, usually fashioned of beaver felt to repel rain or plant fibres to protect from the sun, is known as a 10-gallon hat.
A myriad of other styles of headgear have been developed as well, ranging from the many kinds of straw hats worn worldwide by people who work outdoors; those made of palm fronds, banana leaves, or other fibres and worn in the tropics and in temperate rainforests; hats and hoods of heavy fur or leather in the Arctic; and a wide variety of crowns and other regalia.