Top hat

Austin Lane Crothers, former governor of Maryland, wearing a top hat.

For the movie starring Fred Astaire, see Top Hat. For the theatrical lighting device, see Top hat (lighting). For the top hat roller coaster element, see Roller coaster elements.

A top hat, top-hat, gentleman's cap, or cylinder hat (sometimes also known by the nickname "topper") is a tall, flat-crowned, broad-brimmed hat worn by men throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Now, it is usually worn only with morning dress or evening dress, or as a specific popular cultural fashion statement, such as by guitarist Slash.

History

The top hat was invented by John Hetherington, who designed and constructed a silky-covered variation of the contemporary riding hat, which had a wider brim, a lower crown, and was made of beaver. He first wore it it in public in 1797. The rise in popularity of the silk topper was met with resistance from those who wanted to continue wearing beaver hats. The top hat's place was assured when Prince Albert started wearing them in 1850; coincidentally, the rise in popularity of the top hat led to a decline in beaver hats, wiping out the beaver-trapping industry in America.

The first top hats were made with felt, most commonly being beaver fur felt. Later, they would be made of silk. The structure underneath the felt or silk was made of a material called goss. This was made from layers of calico covered in a hard glue. When gently heated over a flame, the glue softens, allowing the hat to be moulded to shape. A popular version, particularly in the United States in the 19th century, was the stovepipe hat, which was popularized by Abraham Lincoln during his presidency. Unlike many top-hats, this version was straight, like piping, and was not wider at the top and bottom. Often they were taller than the typical top-hat. It is said that Lincoln would keep important letters inside the hat.

The nineteenth century is sometimes known as the Century of the Top Hat. The historian James Laver once made the observation that an assemblage of “toppers” looked like factory chimneys and thus added to the mood of the industrial era. In England, “post-Brummel dandies” went in for flared crowns and swooping brims. Their counterparts in France, known as the “Incroyables,” wore top hats of such outlandish dimensions that there was no room for them in overcrowded cloakrooms until Antoine Gibus came along in 1823 and invented the collapsible top hat. Such hats are often called an "opera hat", though the term can also be synonymous with any top hat, or any tall formal men's hat. In the 1920s they were also often called "high hats".

In the latter half of the 19th century, the top hat gradually fell out of fashion, with the middle classes adopting bowler hats and soft felt hats such as fedoras, which were more convenient for city life, as well as being suitable for mass production. In comparison, a top hat needed to be handmade by a skilled hatter, with few young people willing to take up what was obviously a dying trade. The top hat became associated with the upper class, becoming a target for satirists and social critics. By the end of World War I it had become a rarity in everyday life. It continued to be used for formal wear, with a morning suit in the daytime and with evening clothes (tuxedo or tailcoat) until the late 1930s. (The top hat is featured as one of the original tokens in the board game Monopoly.)

Men wore top hats for business, pleasure and formal occasions — pearl gray for daytime, black for day or night. Top hat etiquette dictates a man should not wear it flat on his head. He should wear it tilted forward and to one side — very slightly though, no more than 10 degrees in either direction — about the same angle Lord Ribblesdale wore his in the famous portrait by John Singer Sargent.

The top hat persisted in certain areas, such as politics and international diplomacy, for several more years. In the newly-formed Soviet Union, there was a fierce debate as to whether its diplomats should follow the international conventions and wear a top hat, with the pro-toppers winning the vote by a large majority.

The last American president to wear a top hat to an inauguration was John F. Kennedy.[1] Gerald Ford was not inaugurated at the Capitol and Jimmy Carter abolished the use of morning dress for inaugurations. It was reinstated, minus a top hat, by Ronald Reagan but not worn by any later presidents to date.

Nowadays cheap imitations of top hats are made for white tie, as well as events calling for morning dress. They are usually made in the stovepipe style and with a flat brim as making it correctly would be too expensive. Top-hats are sometimes associated with stage magic. In 1814 a French magician named Louis Comte became the first conjurer on record to pull a white rabbit out of a top hat. They also appear as a form of party hat and are popular amongst persons in the gothic subculture.

Notable appearances

• John Bull, a national personification of England and sometimes Britain
• Uncle Sam, a national personification of the United States
• Rich Uncle Pennybags (AKA Stanley Monopoly, and better known as Mr. Monopoly), the mascot for the game Monopoly
• The Penguin, one of Batman's enemies
• Ebenezer Scrooge, character in A Christmas Carol, is commonly portrayed on stage and film with a top hat in the early and final scenes
• The Disney character Scrooge McDuck is often show wearing a top hat, perhaps as a nod to his Dickensian namesake.
• Fields of the Nephilim frontman Carl Douglas McCoy
• The Mad Hatter, a character that appears in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• Willy Wonka, chocolate factory owner from the works of Roald Dahl
• Slash, the former guitarist for Guns N' Roses
• The Cat in the Hat from the 1957 book and the 2004 film.
• Mr. Boston as seen in the logo for the brand of liquors of the same name.
• Fred Astaire's signiture clothing choice was a top hat, white tie, and tails.
• Ville Valo, Lead singer of the Finnish band HIM.
• Bam Margera, skateboarder and Jackass personality.
• Mr. Peanut, The dandy-like advertising logo and mascot of Planters.
• Joe Jonas, of the Jonas Brothers wore a top hat at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve in 2008.
• Professor Layton, the protagonist of a video game series named after him, wears a top hat.

Further reading

• Neil Steinberg, Hatless Jack - The President, the Fedora and the Death of the Hat, 2005, Granta Books

External links

• Berendt, John. "History of the Top Hat". International Formalwear Association.