Me + Fedora = Yes Please!

I’m nostalgic for the era when men wore fedoras. What a classy time it was! So, naturally, when Carrie and I were in Clearwater Beach, Florida at a Wings surf shop and I saw a straw vacation-style fedora, I had to get it. Because there is nothing cooler, nothing more classy, than being in a vacation destination and wearing a hat that everyone who sees you knows you would never wear in the context of regular life. That is the definition of cool.

See also: Hawaiian shirts.

Well, plenty of people do wear Hawaiian shirts in regular life, but I maintain that such shirts belong only at beaches and pools. Or anywhere in Miami. In Miami you can wear whatever you want. (Fine, you can wear them anytime and anywhere in Hawaii as well, but that should go without saying.)

That’s why I’ve never purchased a Hawaiian shirt. I’d generally wear it once a year on vacation, but then on one hot summer day I would be tempted to wear it around town, and I’d hate myself all day long and quickly take it off when I got home, shower three times, say two Hail Mary’s and put it back in the far reaches of my closet where it belongs.

That’s way too much physical and emotional energy for one good day of beach apparel. No thanks.

And don’t even get me started on how many buttons I would button. Nobody needs to see my overly-luscious chest forest during regular hours far from a swimmable body of water (or ever really…), and a Hawaiian shirt buttoned all the way up to the top is a comparable infraction to buttoning both buttons on a suit jacket or, gasp, wearing both a belt and suspenders. It doesn’t work. I would also need to wear a gold chain and I’m not much of a jewelry guy.

As an aside, did you know that the fedora has been around since the late 1800’s and was originally considered a women’s hat? It was even adopted as a symbol by the women’s rights movement, which makes it amusingly ironic that the right-wing Orthodox Jewish community has adopted it as a central component of their garb. But I digress…

In short, I really like my fedora from Wings. In fact, I’m wearing it right now, because screw you winter. In my mind, I’m in Clearwater.