The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-07-25
Silk Hat Is Losing Favor.

From the Hatters' Gazette.
If the question were asked of every
wearer of silk hat IF comfort were
the only question to be considered,
would you prefer to wear a felt or a
silk hat?" we do not doubt that, with
out 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 fash
ion 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 a silk hat when on
business, at social functions, or on Sun
day naturally reverts to a felt hat on
other occasions. AS matters know,
hat suffers almost as much wear by be-
ing exposed to light and dust while
hanging on peg as when on the wear
ers head. 1t follows that all branches
of the trade are helped. and the more
frequently the leaders Of fashion desire
new shapes in either silks or felts the
greater will be the turnover of manu-
facturers and retailers.
Who are the mysterious individuals
or, rather, who is the mysterious indi-
vidual who DEGREES with what particu-
lar kind of covering long-suffering hui
mainly shall hide the brains we are all
more or less supposed to possess? 1t Is
said that the Prince of Wales. who is =
stanch believer in the silk hat, has
considerable hand in the matter. But
whether that be so or not, the prince
Is undoubtedly responsible for the still
almost 'impregnable position this artl-
Gle occupies in our wardrobes. Accord
ing to a London morning paper the SIX
hn iG losing a
coat it is de rigueur the world over
with all who make the slightest pre-
tense even of knowing what to wear,
says the writer of the article. But in
no city, perhaps, is the doom of the
silk hat more patent than in London.
Twenty. nay, 10, years ago who but
vulgar clodhopper would dare wear
bowler in Bond street or the park?
What city man, to say nothing of
city clerk, would have dreamed of go
ing to his office except in the regula-
ton headgear? What fellow from the
ccuntry-more especially if he wanted
to be taken for a cockney-wnuld have
come for few days holiday to Lon
don without his silk hat? The shs pc
or style or cut did not matter. To his
Impractical 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 los
ing its hold in Other parts OF London,
as it did many years ago in Fleet street
the one great thoroughfare where
headgear is of no account: where even
a poetical species of hat is affected by
some, a veritable sombrero of sunny
Seville, which for some unfathomab.e
reason Londoners speak of as SOM
brero hat as though sombrero itself
meant something else.
But in spite of all this the silk hat
,ft lone tn y a a n
The silk hat of the swell-the man
about town--is not the silk hat of the
city merchant; we have cabinet min
ister's silk hat, a clerical silk hat, q
journalistic silk hat, lawyers silk
hat, a cabman's silk hat, a city clerks
silk hat and many more. There they
all are proclaiming loudly to some ex-
tent by their condition, but more often
by their shape, to what class of per-
son they belong"