Dress Hats
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Why Dress Hats
Want to add the finishing touches to your glitz and glamor for the night? Why not add a stylish dress hat to your ensemble? The beauty of a modern dress hat is that you can find one in almost any style. Modern hatmakers have taken to making their hats versatile. When you step out into the evening for a fancier affair, look forward to putting on a fedora, a porkpie, or maybe even a top hat. Maybe a cloche or a felt wide-brimmed hat does the trick. Elegance is a state of mind, and the right dress hat can help you achieve it. Best yet, your dress hat can double as a Kentucky Derby hat, a church hat, or maybe even an Easter hat.
At the turn of the 20th century, hats, especially top hats for dress wear were popular. In fact, it was rare to see someone out and about without a hat to complete their outfit. Along with top hats, bowler hats were popular choices. As the years went on, the size and height of the hats changed along with the width of their brims, bringing into fashion a variety of dress hats for men and women.
Those days, the type of hat one wore was a class signifier. Felt top hats meant something different than homburg hats and bowler hats. In certain regions, also, certain hats became popular. In the western United States, for example, felt hats with wide, stiff brims came into fashion. Meanwhile, silk top hats came into vogue for wealthy business people, though they were less prominent in the countryside. Slowly, however, the practice of delineating religion or status through hat style faded out of style, as lines between homburg and bowler, top hat and fedora began to fade.
As time passed, some of the hats people once wore for all occasions became hats designed just for special events and dressier affairs. Now that more materials are available to milliners, we are able to enjoy such wonders as sinamay floppy brimmed hats, woven cloche hats, sleek flat caps and the ever-present fedora in a variety of look and material. Even safari hats, with their sometimes-wavy brims and slightly more annunciated look, can function in a formal setting provided they’re made of the right material.
Today, we can safely approach a more upscale situation with a variety of different dress hats. The trick is to find something that suits you, of course, but that also lends itself to a bit more sophisticated look. Even a boater hat in appropriate colors and material can accompany a suit to a daytime soiree. And, certain styles, like fascinators, that made themselves popular among literal royalty and Kentucky Derby parties alike, are always in the clear for more formal events during the day. Hats have evolved plenty over the years, and dress hats are no exception. If you plan to make a dress hat part of your wardrobe during your next exciting get-together, you’re in luck. There are plenty of styles to choose from and we know exactly where you might find a dress hat today.