Whitehaze
28th January 2011, 17:11
In chat today the subject of Bills hat came up. Taken from hatsuk.com.....
One of the first hats to be depicted was found in a tomb painting at Thebes and shows a man wearing a coolie-style straw hat. Other early hats include the Pileus, which was a simple skull cap, the Phrygian cap, which became identified later as the 'liberty cap' given to slaves in Greece and Rome when they were made free men, and the Pestasos which comes from ancient Greece and is the first known hat with a brim.
But is a hat just a cover for ones head?
Twenty five years ago I happened to be walking though a mall in Phillipsburg New Jersey. It was around Christmas time, so there were the usual crowds of mindless shoppers that are completely oblivious to their surroundings. I was standing at one of those kiosks looking at some jewelry, when a woman came up and took my arm and said come with me. She took me into a Wilsons Leather shop, and went directly to their hat racks. She took a few minutes looking at them, she picked one. It was a black leather Indiana Jones type hat. She purchased the hat and placed it on my head, and said there that is much better. She walked away, never giving her name or anything. I have worn that hat every day since then. Although it is faded and worn, it contains a history of its own. It has been on my journey through most of my life. A hat is much more than a cover, and it must be the perfect hat for the individual. As is Bills hat, and just imagine the history that hat has witnessed.
One of the first hats to be depicted was found in a tomb painting at Thebes and shows a man wearing a coolie-style straw hat. Other early hats include the Pileus, which was a simple skull cap, the Phrygian cap, which became identified later as the 'liberty cap' given to slaves in Greece and Rome when they were made free men, and the Pestasos which comes from ancient Greece and is the first known hat with a brim.
But is a hat just a cover for ones head?
Twenty five years ago I happened to be walking though a mall in Phillipsburg New Jersey. It was around Christmas time, so there were the usual crowds of mindless shoppers that are completely oblivious to their surroundings. I was standing at one of those kiosks looking at some jewelry, when a woman came up and took my arm and said come with me. She took me into a Wilsons Leather shop, and went directly to their hat racks. She took a few minutes looking at them, she picked one. It was a black leather Indiana Jones type hat. She purchased the hat and placed it on my head, and said there that is much better. She walked away, never giving her name or anything. I have worn that hat every day since then. Although it is faded and worn, it contains a history of its own. It has been on my journey through most of my life. A hat is much more than a cover, and it must be the perfect hat for the individual. As is Bills hat, and just imagine the history that hat has witnessed.