Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-07-08
ENGLISH HATS.
Many Marked Changes Have Taken
Place in London Styles.

From the Hatters' Gazette.
If the question We're asked of every
wearer of a silk hat, IF comfort We're the
only question to be considered. would You
prefer to wear felt or a silk hat?' we do
not doubt that, without exception, the
answer would be that fashion DEGREES that
silk hats must be Worn by all men who
wish to look well dressed, and the dictates
of fashion must be obeyed, Notwithstanding
the extra comfort gained by wearing a
hard or soft felt. While fashion rules thus
the hat trade benefits all round. A man
wearing silk hat when on business, at
social functions, or on Sunday, naturally
reverts to a felt hat on other occasions. AS
hatters know, hat suffers almost as much
wear by being exposed to light and dust
while hanging a peg when on the
wearer's head 1t follows that all branches
of the trade are helped, and the more fire.
Quently the leaders of fashion desire new
shapes in either silks felts the greater
will be the turnover of manufacturers and
retailers
Who are the mysterious individuals, or,
rather, who is the mysterious individual
who DEGREES with what particular kind OF
covering long-suffering humanity shall hide
the brains we are all more or less supposed
to possess? 1t is said that the Prince OF
Wales. who is a stanch believer in the silk
hat has considerable hand in the mat
ter. But whether that be so or not the
prince is undoubtedly responsible for the
still almost impregnable position this ar
tice occupies in our wardrobes. According
to a London morning paper the silk hat Is
losing ground. with frock coat it is de
rigueur the world over with all who make
the slightest pretense even of knowing
what to wear" says the writer of the ar
ticle. But in no city; perhaps, is the doom
of the silk hat more patent than in London
Twenty, nay, ten years ago, who but
vulgar clodhopper would dare wear a bow
ler' in Bond street or the park? What city
man, to say nothing of a city clerk, would
have dreamed of going to his office except
in the regulation headgear? What fellow
from the country-more especially If he
wanted to be taken for a cockney-would
have come for few days holiday to Lon
don without his silk hat? The shape, or
style cut did not matter To his I'M
practiced eye he saw no difference: the
fact that he had a silk hat on was more
| than sufficient for him. But all that has
changed. The silk hat is fast losing it's
hold in other parts of London, as it did
man, years ago in Fleet street.-the one
great thoroughfare where headgear is of no
account; where even poetical species of
hat Is affected by some, Veritable. SOM
| brero of sunny Seville, which for some I'M
| fashionable reason LOndoners speak of as
| a 'sombrero hat as though sombrero itself
| meant something else.
| but in spite of all this the silk hat still
| gees long way to mark a man. The silk
| hat of the swell-the man about town--is
not the silk hat of the city merchant: we
| have a cabinet minister's silk hat a clerical
| silk hat, a journalistic silk hat, law
yers silk hat claimants silk hat, a city
| clerks silk hat and many more. There
| they all are, proclaiming loudly to some
| extent by their condition, but more often
by their shape, to, what class of person
| they belong"