Top hat
A top hat is a tall, flat-crowned hat traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditionally made of black silk or sometimes grey, the top hat emerged in Western fashion by the end of the 18th century. Although such hats fell out of fashion through the 20th century, being almost entirely phased out by the time of the counterculture of the 1960s, it remains a formal fashion accessory. A collapsible variant of a top hat, developed in the 19th century, is known as an opera hat.
Perhaps inspired by the early modern era capotain, higher-crowned dark felt hats with wide brims emerged as a country leisurewear fashion along with the Age of Revolution around the 1770s. Around the 1780s, the justaucorps was replaced by the previously casual frocks and dress coats. With the introduction of the top hat in the early 1790s, the tricorne and bicorne hats began falling out of fashion. By the start of the 19th century, the directoire style dress coat with top hat was widely introduced as city wear for the upper and middle classes in all urban areas of the Western world. The justaucorps was replaced in all but the most formal court affairs. Around the turn of the 19th century, although for a few decades beaver hats were popular, black silk became the standard, sometimes varied by grey ones. While the dress coats were replaced by the frock coat from the 1840s as conventional formal daywear, top hats continued to be worn with frock coats as well as with what became known as formal evening wear white tie. Towards the end of the 19th century, whereas the white tie with black dress coat remained fixed, frock coats were gradually replaced by morning dress, along with top hats.
After World War I, the 1920s saw widespread introduction of semi-formal black tie and informal wear suits that were worn with less formal hats such as bowler hats, homburgs, boaters and fedoras respectively, in established society. After World War II, white tie, morning dress and frock coats along with their counterpart, the top hat, started to become confined to high society, politics and international diplomacy. Following the counterculture of the 1960s, its use declined further along with the use also of daily informal hats by men.
Yet, along with traditional formal wear, the top hat continues to be applicable for the most formal occasions, including weddings and funerals, in addition to certain audiences, balls, and horse racing events, such as the Royal Enclosure at Royal Ascot and the Queen's Stand of Epsom Derby. It also remains part of the formal dress of those occupying prominent positions in certain traditional British institutions, such as the Bank of England, certain City stock exchange officials, occasionally at the Law Courts and Lincoln's Inn, judges of the Chancery Division and King's Counsel, boy-choristers of King's College Choir, dressage horseback riders, and servants' or doormen's livery.
As part of traditional formal wear, in popular culture the top hat has sometimes been associated with the upper class, and used by satirists and social critics as a symbol of capitalism or the world of business, as with the Monopoly Man or Scrooge McDuck. The top hat also forms part of the traditional dress of Uncle Sam, a symbol of the United States, generally striped in red, white and blue. Furthermore, ever since the famous "Pulling a Rabbit out of a Hat" of Louis Comte in 1814, the top hat remains associated with hat tricks and stage magic costumes.
Name
The top hat is also known as a beaver hat or silk hat, in reference to its material, as well as casually as chimney pot hat or stove pipe hat. In many languages of Europe, such as Italian, German, Russian and Hungarian, the term for top hat translates as 'cylinder hat', due to its top having a cylindrical shape.History
According to fashion historians, the top hat may have descended directly from the sugarloaf hat; otherwise it is difficult to establish provenance for its creation. Gentlemen began to replace the tricorne with the top hat at the end of the 18th century; a painting by Charles Vernet of 1796, Un Incroyable, shows a French dandy with such a hat. The first silk top hat in England is credited to George Dunnage, a hatter from Middlesex, in 1793. The invention of the top hat is often erroneously credited to a haberdasher named John Hetherington.Within 30 years top hats had become popular with all social classes, with even workmen wearing them. At that time those worn by members of the upper classes were usually made of felted beaver fur; the generic name "stuff hat" was applied to hats made from various non-fur felts. The hats became part of the uniforms worn by policemen and postmen ; since these people spent most of their time outdoors, their hats were topped with black oilcloth.
19th century
Between the latter part of 18th century and the early part of the 19th century, felted beaver fur was slowly replaced by silk "hatter's plush", though the silk topper met with resistance from those who preferred the beaver hat.The 1840s and the 1850s saw it reach its most extreme form, with ever-higher crowns and narrow brims. The stovepipe hat was a variety with mostly straight sides, while one with slightly convex sides was called the "chimney pot". The style most commonly referred to as the stovepipe was popularized in the United States by Abraham Lincoln during his presidency; though it is postulated that he may never have called it stovepipe himself, but merely a silk hat or a plug hat. Lincoln often carried documents and letters inside the hat. One of Lincoln's top hats is kept on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.
During the 19th century, the top hat developed from a fashion into a symbol of urban respectability, and this was assured when Prince Albert started wearing them in 1850; the rise in popularity of the silk plush top hat possibly led to a decline in beaver hats, sharply reducing the size of the beaver trapping industry in North America, though it is also postulated that the beaver numbers were also reducing at the same time. Whether it directly affected or was coincidental to the decline of the beaver trade is debatable.
James Laver once observed that an assemblage of "toppers" resembled factory chimneys and thus added to the mood of the industrial era. In England, post-Brummell dandies went in for flared crowns and swooping brims. Their counterparts in France, known as the "Incroyables", wore top hats of such outlandish dimensions that there was no room for them in overcrowded cloakrooms until the invention of the collapsible top hat.
20th century
Until World War I the top hat was maintained as a standard item of formal outdoor wear by upper-class males for both daytime and evening usage. Considerations of convenience and expense meant however that it was increasingly superseded by soft hats for ordinary wear. By the end of World War II, it had become a comparative rarity, though it continued to be worn regularly in certain roles. In Britain, these included holders of various positions in the Bank of England and City stockbroking, as well as boys at some public schools. All the civilian members of the Japanese delegation who signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on 2 September 1945 wore top hats, reflecting common diplomatic practice at the time.File:TopHatORGI.jpg|thumb|upright|Poster for the 1935 musical comedy film Top Hat, featuring Fred Astaire wearing a top hat and white tie
The top hat persisted in politics and international diplomacy for many years. In the Soviet Union, there was debate as to whether its diplomats should follow the international conventions and wear a top hat. Instead, a diplomatic uniform with peaked cap for formal occasions was adopted.
Top hats were part of formal wear for U.S. presidential inaugurations for many years, beginning with Franklin Pierce in 1853. President Dwight D. Eisenhower spurned the hat for his inauguration in 1953, but John F. Kennedy, who was accustomed to formal dress, brought it back for his inauguration in 1961. Nevertheless, Kennedy delivered his forceful inaugural address hatless, reinforcing the image of vigor he desired to project, and setting the tone for an active administration to follow. His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, did not wear a top hat for any part of his inauguration in 1965, and the hat has not been worn since for this purpose.
In the United Kingdom, the post of Government Broker in the London Stock Exchange that required the wearing of a top hat in the streets of the City of London was abolished by the "Big Bang" reforms of October 1986. In the British House of Commons, a rule requiring a Member of Parliament who wished to raise a point of order during a division, having to speak seated with a top hat on, was abolished in 1998. Spare top hats were kept in the chamber in case they were needed. The Modernisation Select Committee commented that "This particular practice has almost certainly brought the House into greater ridicule than almost any other."
Although Eton College has long abandoned the top hat as part of its uniform, top hats are still worn by "Monitors" at Harrow School with their Sunday dress uniform. They are worn by male members of the British royal family on State occasions as an alternative to military uniform, for instance, in the Carriage Procession at the Diamond Jubilee in 2012. Top hats may also be worn at some horse racing meetings, notably The Derby and Royal Ascot. Top hats are worn at the Tynwald Day ceremony and a few other formal occasions in the Isle of Man.
In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four, the top hat features prominently in the propaganda of the book's totalitarian regime: "These rich men were called capitalists. They were fat, ugly men with wicked faces dressed in a long black coat which was called a frock coat, and a queer, shiny hat shaped like a stovepipe, which was called a top hat. This was the uniform of the capitalists, and no one else was allowed to wear it."