5 mistakes to avoid when wearing a hat

The hat is perhaps the most important menswear accessory of all: if in the past the hat denoted belonging and social status, today its role has changed. The two acceptable hats to wear in public are the classic baseball cap and the bucket hat – we'll talk about fedoras and newsboy hat later, but you won't like what we'll say. Both categories to be considered acceptable remain extremely borderline: the bucket hat is always the safest and, as long as it is not covered with an immense logo and is not of strange sizes, it should always represent a safe choice; the baseball cap instead is a very dangerous material, as it can both inspire a relaxed and sporty mood, and evoke infernal visions of chavs and flashy Jersey Shore-type people that have made it a bit their symbol. 

As summer has begun and the number of various hats and caps seen on the street soars, here are the 5 mistakes to avoid when wearing a hat. 

#1 No to newsboys hats and fedoras

Maybe you grew up listening to Justin Timberlake and Ne-Yo and you think the fedora is a romantic, vaguely rock hat, which gives you the cool air of a world-weary man who lived. Maybe you like Irish rock, you come from a metalhead's past, you love the idea of an old-fashioned wardrobe or you just watched too many episodes of Peaky Blinders. In both cases newsboy hats and fedoras, in whatever form, are the exact opposite of sophistication and elegance: the former makes you look older or like a rejuvenated grandfather or a leprechaun; the latter is practically the international symbol of fuckboys from all over the world. Choose better. 

#2 Wearing them on the top of the head

If bad taste were a crime, those wearing overly tight caps that seem to rest on the top of your head deserve life imprisonment. It's difficult to understand the meaning of this trend. The most credited hypothesis is that hats worn in this way should communicate relaxation and nonchalance – a bit the way in which the 1940s Hollywood movies gangsters wore it tilted. Too bad that the only image these hats worn at the top of the head manage to evoke are about youth prisons and juvenile crime. Hello, fashion police?

#3 No studs, no stickers, no nothing on them

This one would need no explanation. If you are six years old and are at Disneyland wearing wings or puffy ears on your hat it is excusable, but if you are over six years old avoid doing it. The same goes for those gummy tags/stickers with phrases that should make you laugh but never do: put an embroidery or a banal coat of arms on it, is that too much? The comes hats with studs: the stud should communicate a somewhat rock ideal, a though guy vibe; too bad the only thing you communicate is that you're trying a little too hard. It's a hat, not a personality. 

#4 Oversize hats

Oversize is good for everything, assuming you can wear it, except in hats. And this is a rule that no one escapes: if the hat looks bigger than your head you are doing something wrong. And this includes the wide-brimmed fedora, that Yogi Bear horror that Pharrell always wore until a few years ago but also those huge straw hats from Hollywood divas loved by wannabe influencers from half the world. 

#5 Bright colors and weird quotes

Flair and fantasy are always welcome when it comes to dressing, but not when all the flair focuses on a single accessory. The hat is precisely this: an accessory, something that should add a final touch to the rest but that is not the rest. So if your hat is the most contrite item you're wearing, if its colour is too bright, if the writing above testifies that you've been to some lame festival, that you belong to this or that religious or political belief, or that you've gone to some business convention, but also if it's made up of bizarre or sparkling materials maybe you're doing something wrong.