The mad hatter
Joseph Connolly reveals a life-long obsession with hats Ikissed a girl called Elizabeth when I was seven years old, and here was the beginning of a passionate and everlasting love affair. Not with Elizabeth, but with headgear, strangely, because I said I’d only kiss her if she gave me her Davy Crockett hat, and she instantly agreed — this saying quite a lot about Elizabeth, as well as myself.
Television was really to blame (and when is it not?) because just everyone on it had a hat that I coveted. Cowboys, initially — Roy Rogers and the Cisco Kid, that of the latter like a great black flying saucer with the benefit of bobbles that danced around madly whenever he laughed. John Steed’s cute little bowler evoked a powerful lust, and while I didn’t much fancy Hancock’s Homburg, I did go for his later and very jaunty ‘Robin Hood’ with the little feather tucked into its headband. They sold these at Hampstead Heath Fair for half-a-crown and I profoundly embarrassed my mother by trying on dozens of them to achieve the perfect fit. I practically overdosed on the vintage blackand-white films — the great detective’s deerstalker, the SS officer’s cap, with all its braid and eagles, the Chicago mobster’s wide-brimmed fedora and anything Prussian with finials and plumes.
And then I saw Top Hat, and that was just the finish. The style, the elan, the ritzy winking sheen of it — like a stack of LPs. The nearest I ever got to the look (i.e. not at all) was when, as a teenager, I had to hire a morning suit because I was to be an usher at a wedding. They only had huge ones left, and I was forced to stuff several copies of the Radio Times into the sweatband in order to prevent this grey and malignant topper from hitting my lips — and, incidentally, the tailcoat was so full of pins that I hardly dared move for fear of shrieking and then bleeding to death (they said the happy couple were very well suited, but they never said the same about me).
Since that time I have always worn hats, while fewer and fewer around me seemed to do so. But just lately there’s been a notice able revival, and I’ve been wondering why. The rise in popularity of Panamas I put down to sun-related health fears and the relief among the British that they are no longer perceived to be the preserve of sozzled expatriates and sleazy foreign gigolos. The ubiquity of the cocky pork pie (they sell them in street markets everywhere) is the fault of Pete Doherty, his hat being seemingly the only thing that can contain his head. The gradual spread of the brown trilby and the tweed cap — staples with country folk, who have always affected to be unaware of any such grossness as a passing fashion — is largely attributable to those well-known rustics Mr and Mrs Madonna (though in the looming divorce, custody of the hats will, I imagine, be fairly low on the agenda). The resurgence of the more romantic fedora is down to Indiana Jones — and you can buy the actual one as supplied to Indy himself from the rather sad shadow of what used to be the great hatters Herbert Johnson (now just a shelf or so in the basement of Swaine Adeney Brigg in St James’s Street). They’ve sold about 100 since the release of the new film at up to £300 a go — but you can get an ‘official’ version at Disneyland Europe for around 20 (I know because I did, and it isn’t wholly dreadful).
After a lifetime’s experimentation, I now know that the only hats worth bothering with are foldable. Not only is there no fear of them being inadvertently crushed, but one does not have to leave them in unattended cloakrooms (a good hat is eminently nickable, as I can attest). Also, they’re lightweight, so your brain doesn’t broil. The best hatter by far is Lock & Co — founded in 1676, two royal warrants, and if it was good enough for Lord Nelson, it’s good enough for you. In the rickety, ancient, unshowy and hence bloody perfect shop in St James’s you will find the definitive folder, the Rambler — unlined felt and yet waterproof and very dashing — at only £89, and now my absolute favourite (not to say the ideal Christmas gift for that special head, coming as it does in a stylish black-piped white cylindrical box bearing Lock & Co’s distinctive typography).
And assuming that next summer we might even get a ray or so of sunshine, there is also, at £190, the ideal Panama, the Monte Cristi Folder (also in a box) — although the Superfine Folder is really the thing: it rolls to virtually nothing, but it does cost £675. I don’t suppose they’d do it for a kiss.
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