I really want this hat. It's awesome, it's reasonably priced and I've seen plenty of bloggers, people, women on the street even, look great in tiles of its type. But it's here that I have to confess my complicated relationship with hats. See, I've bought them, I've lined them up on shelves, hung them off bedposts (literally, not like a promiscuous cowboy) but I never wear them out of the flat.
I think my issue comes down to confidence. To step out of the house in a hat that isn't purely functional, and let's be honest, a fedora serves no function except making you look awesome -- says something about you. It says: 'I'm choosing style, completely, over substance.' And that, my friends, is my problem... this behaviour has been known to make me irrationally angry.
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There's a girl who often gets on my morning train who has worn what I like to refer to as the nonchalant beanie, in the way only someone who roams east London can, for the entire summer. And I don't mean the last two months of summer which weren't, in fact, summer, but an evil ploy by the high street to make me buy a load of shit in July I never got to wear. She wore it in the heady days of April, when we all thought our barbeques were going to get a hammering until November. Every time I see her it makes me angry. "Who are you fooling lady? You're clearly sweltering under there. Suffering doesn't make you cool! It makes you sweaty!"
And that's the crux of it -- I'm just never truly comfortable in a hat. Once you get indoors, you look foolish with it on. And then you take it off, and if you're me, your hair looks flat. And I always ending up checking in windows whether it's pulled down enough, and is enough hair is visible so I don't look bald, and can I see and OH GOD IT'S GOING TO BLOW OFF IN THE WIND!
***
Hats are frivolous in a way that, much as I want to, I can't get on board with. And they're right there on your head. Jewelry is fine - it's dotted about your person, not on top of your face. The hat is a statement. A statement I don't think I'm ready to make.
Hats are supposed to look cool, and you can't look cool when all you're thinking is: "There's a hat on my head!"So, I will probably not buy this hat, but if you have the swagger to, go forth, look awesome and I will feel a pang of jealousy every time you walk past me in London Fields.
Incidentally, here are my three hat don'ts...
The tiny little beanie placed at the crown.
The tiny bowler placed at the crown.
Any other type of tiny hat placed at the crown.
UPDATE!
I bought the hat. Granted in the sale. So far I've had the comments: "You look like a Kardashian." (AWESOME) and "You look like a detective." I'll take that.
