The daily chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Ind. Ter. [Okla.]) 1898-1902, 1899-08-26
SILK HAT LOSING FAVOR.
The High Head Covering II Not SO
Popular. But IL stiii Swell
Headgear.

If the question were asked OF every
xvearer of a silk hat: III comfort were
the only question to be considered,
would you prefer to wear felt or q
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 Wilde fashion rules
thus. the hat trade benefits all round.
A man wearing a silk hat while on busi-
ness, at social functions, or on Sunday
naturally reverts to felt hat on other
occasions. AS hatters know, hat
suffers almost as much wear by being
exposed to light and dust while hang
ing on peg as when on the wearer's
head. 1t follows that all branches OF
the trade are helped, and the more fre-
quently 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 in
dividual who DEGREES with what partc-
ular 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
a considerable hand in the matter. But
whether that be so or not, the prince is
undoubtedly responsible for the still
almost impregnable position this ar,
ticle occupies in our wardrobes. Ac-
cording 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 article.
"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 bowler in Bond street or
the park? What city man, to say
nothing of city clerk, would have
dreamed of going to his office except in
the regulation headgear? What fellow
from the country-more especially II
he wanted to be taken for cockney-
would have come for few days holi-
day to London without his silk hat?
The shape or style or cut did not mat
ter. To his Impractical eye he saw no
difference; the fact that he had n silk
hat ON was more than sufficient for him.
But all that has changed. The silk hat
is losing its hold in other parts of Lon
don, as it did many 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, a veritable sombrero of sunny
Seville, which for some unfathomabie
reason Londoners speak of as a SOM
brero hat as though sombrero itself
meant something else.
"But in spite of all this the silk hat
still goes long way TO mark man.
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, clerical silk hat, a
journalistic silk hat, q cabman's silk
hat, a city clerks silk hat and many
more. There they all are proclaiming
| loudly to some extent by their condi-
zion, bat more often by their shape, to
what class of person they belong
Hatters'. Gazette.