LEISURE
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FA S H I O N
HENRY VIII One of the first caps most commonly seen, but no necessarily recalled as such would be that of English King Henry VIII. Yes, he of the many wives, but also of the portrait in white stockings, hands akimbo and the grandiose “Cap of Maintenance” that denotes nobility. The headpiece was made from Italian velvet, embroidered with actual gold and stiffened with whale baleen.
A CAP IS NOT JUST A THING ON THE HEAD. IT’S A BILLBOARD OF INTENT, WRITES CLIFFORD ROBERTS.
HAT’S OFF
TO THE CAP
T
he New York Times really described it best when an article published in 2015 referred to the humble baseball cap as the Common Man’s Crown. It’s difficult to imagine a time when the baseball cap wasn’t the go-to noggin-cover, but of course there were plenty. Just think of your earliest memory of Frank Sinatra and those of his ilk, and the image is just incomplete without that tilted snap-brim fedora. “Angles are attitudes,” is a quote often attributed to the man of whom the book The Way You Wear Your Hat was published in 1997. Like all the cap’s predecessors, hats are more than mere practicality. They’re fashion, and fashion by its nature is impossible to predict. In head-gear, you really need to know your taqiyah from your trilby. The development of the most commonly worn hat today, the baseball cap, didn’t happen in a straight line. Plus, it has a family tree of note. Need a cap? Choose from a newsboy cap, apple cap, duckbill cap, ivy cap, ascot cap, stocking cap, trucker-style, snapback, fitted cap, and more. A good timeline are the characters that feature in the story along the way; those who have shaped fashion in their being among the most visible.
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3 LIBERTY Another famous cap was the one painted in 1830 by Eugène Delacroix atop the head of Liberty Leading the People. Think French Revolution and you’ll immediately have the image: a lass – hair, tri-colour, dress and, ahem, breasts, all billowing in the wind. That Phrygian cap was quite possibly one of the places headdress first came to be recognised as more than just worker-class attire, but veritably anti-establishment.
4 DAVY CROCKETT Across the Atlantic “pond” during this time, another cap was being worn that would famously be remembered. The early 1800s was a time of European colonisation in the US and Davy Crockett – folk hero and frontiersman – was one of its stars. Ironically, his so-called coonskin cap was traditionally Native American.
VENUS OF BRASSEMPOUY Now, you’re probably not familiar with her, but one can’t begin a story in the middle. It’s worth noting the first step in the road. While the first actual hat discovery is dated to around 3 300 BC, the carvings in an ivory figurine Venus of Brassempouy, discovered in France from 25 000 years ago, are regarded as quite possibly the first head-covering.
