Tonight:
9°c
It's not often I find myself applauding David Beckham's mad sartorial spasms, but pictures of him wearing a fedora deserve an emphatic thumbs-up. The saddest thing ever to happen to men's fashion was the demise of the hat, and any celebrity endorsement that helps spark a revival is to be welcomed.
Men look good in hats. It is one of the few items of masculine apparel which is both practical and affords scope for dandyism. A hat keeps you warm, looks stylish, and is a far more effective tool for keeping the rain off, without injuring fellow pedestrians, than the effeminate and unpredictable umbrella.
Of course, I'm not talking here about the beanies and baseball caps favoured by rappers and off-duty film stars, effective though these unlovely items are for insulating the bonce in the colder months. No. Think instead of Leonard Cohen, unfeasibly dapper on his latest tour in a double-breasted suit and trilby. Or Gilbert and George in their hand-made fur numbers. Or Barack Obama in his jaunty boater. The elegant Philip Treacy creations that Boy George wears on stage are the only things that stop him looking like a querulous boiled potato.
Instilled with an early love of hats by the snap-brim swagger of William Powell in The Thin Man and Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, I now own more titfers than I know what to do with. There's the black fedora brought back by my parents from Chicago when I was 20. The parchment-coloured Panama from Bates of Jermyn Street (which, along with the venerable Lock and Co, keeps the hat alive in St James's). The fake-fur Russian-style number with ear-flaps that I bought on a cold day from Hornets, the purveyors of vintage gentlemen's clothing in Kensington.
All of these are worn when the weather demands, or permits. But there are others. The Home Guard helmet that belonged to my grandfather. The Kofia purchased from a persuasive African in Lanzarote. And the deerstalker I bought, also from Hornets, on a whim (I had been drinking).
I wouldn't quite dare wear these, or the Christy's cream topper (made by Steve Cossey, the last apprenticed hatter working in the UK, and a snip at £29), that Hornets lent me for this picture. But who knows? If Beckham wears one, so will I. How about it, Dave?
