On top of their heads

Caps, hats, lids… Scanning the streets in America, it looks to me like every other man wears a baseball cap.
Not such a common sight in old Europe where they are traditionally worn either by some young crowd, bad boys from rough neighbourhoods, hip-hop fans and young skaters, or by posh folks on golf courses (and only only golf courses). Needless to say these two groups won’t be seen together and will wear different style of caps.
Here in the US, baseball caps don’t seem to have that much of a social affiliation. All kind of people wear them.

A little research into sartorial history taught me that the universalism of baseball caps is actually quite recent, dating back to the 1980’s.
Until then, it was pretty much just an equipment for baseball players to shield their eyes from the sun and an accessory for fans to support their team at the stadium. But not worn on a day to day basis.
In the late 1970’s, sports got really big on TV and retired baseball players were seen on the screen wearing caps outside of the field, as part of their daily outfit. Add to this a big marketing campaign New Era, the manufacturer that created the design of current caps (59Fifty for the connoisseurs) in the mid fifties, as they started to sell their affordable baseball hats by mail order. From 1979, it became acceptable to wear baseball any day, anywhere.
But what apparently made baseball caps properly cool and hip was Spike Lee’s appearance on TV in 1996 wearing a cap specially designed by New Era to match the rest of his outfit. This is said to have kicked of the era of baseball caps as proper fashion accessory and everybody started to wear one from presidents and CEOs to any regular guy.
Next time you go to America, make a stop at Lids, this chain of stores that is the Mecca for caps enthusiasts.

On top of this historical knowledge, I am glad this research also gave me more cultural knowledge. With my European bias, my reading had been too basic: the type of cap and the way it is worn actually matter a lot too. The style ranges from crisp new hats with very flat brim and the sticker still on that rappers love, to faded and frayed caps that frat boys purposely tatter.
And obviously caps are an interesting mean to convey messages, sport-oriented or more political. Like Make America Great Again. They can also advertise your startup (even though hoodies, backpacks and refillable bottles seem to be more popular for this purpose).

As usual, I ran a quick fact check. Even though the feeling that caps are more extensively worn in America, to the point that they are one of the national symbol, seems to be shared widely, I cannot prove my point with figures. I wanted to benchmark the US and France. I found that the number of baseball caps sold annually in the US is 43 millions, which gives an average of 1.3 hats purchased per person per year. For France I could only find figures that aggregate all hats and found no information to let me isolate caps only bringing the average to 1.7 caps/hats per person. Do we wear more other types on hats in France? I don’t really know… Trying to prove this point will bug me for a while….

There is another thing I cannot get my head around: why wear baseball caps indoor where sun or rain are not threatening? Can your hair really look that terrible you want to hide it so bad?
I guess my approach to fashion is way too utilitarian for me to get it. I do not even own a baseball cap…

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All the sports caps from the Bay Area I should could start collecting
(photos: lids.com)

Sources:
The New York Times – The Common Man’s Crown – 04/05/2015
Epic Sports – Baseball Hats and Caps History
Passion Amérique – Les Américains et les casquettes de baseball, une histoire d’amour – 06/13/2016
Statistica – Hats and Caps – 2019
Brain Statistics – Hat Sales Industry Statistics – 2019

Closet mania

I have a confession to make. One of my guilty pleasures is watching property and home improvement programmes on TV. In the UK, I would indulge in binge watching Home in the Sun, George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces and Grand Design.

So I had to check out the programmes out here. I discovered HGTV and Fixer Upper, My Lottery Dream Home,Property Brothers. What a delight!

Very quickly, the thing that really stroke me across all the shows is the obsession about cabinets and walk-in wardrobes.
The participants would be shown an amazing mansion, in the right style, in the right location, with a massive swimming pool, lots of space to “entertain” and anything you could dream of. But they would go “Meh… no walk-in wardrobe… deal breaker!”.

Among all the shows I watched in the UK, I cannot recollect such a focus on walk-in wardrobes. And I cannot think that any of my friends back in Europe, even the most organised, most fashion-addict of them, would shun an attractive apartment for an absence of walk-in wardrobe. It would be a nice-to-have, not a must-have.

So I felt I had to research this intriguing fact deeper.

I found this detailed story in the very serious New York Times. It explains the delicate alchemy of combining enough closets to fulfil the psychological need to feel that all our belongings can fit in them but not too many as you would not want storage space eating up actual living space. Tricky balance.
I have also look at some numbers. Americans buy more than twice as many clothes than Europeans do every year (1).
My simple (and maybe wrong) theory here would then be: Americans have more stuff so they really have a deeper psychological need for more storage space in their homes. 

The article also points that there is an extra sociological layer to these storage units. Walk-in wardrobes are considered as a symbol of achievement, a statement to show the world you can afford to “waste” space for this and you have clothes and shoes worth being carefully stored.
I knew about cars or watches as outward sign of wealth, but never thought about closets this way.  Until I was remembered that chests were already items of luxury in the middle ages, in which people would store their riches.

The Financial Times also wrote a good piece on closets as expression of their owner’s personality.  They have to be bespoke which apparently can incorporate a lot of eccentricities if you have the money for it.
The article also makes an interesting point on how social medias accounts from reality stars like Paris Hilton made closets shift from a place where to conceal things to a place where to put things in display.
Your wardrobe is now an instagramable extension of your personality.

Considering my own limited and unstylish wardrobe, I feel quite immune to the want of a walk-in space for it. But ironically, there is sort of one in our new apartment. I still have to figure out own to make the best use of that space. Which may prove challenging as the dream come true seems to actually fall short even of big enthousiasts’ expectations like Brie Dyas.
So I will conclude borrowing her words: “Really, you’d rather have the space for something else, wouldn’t you?”

A digression on minimalism

Writing this post actually reminded me of a documentary I watched a couple of years ago. It was about 2 American guys who decided to stop being miserable about things they own. So they embarked on a journey to owning less. And they are sharing their experience. Check it out on the Minimalists website. There are some pretty interesting resources on it.

I quite subscribe to some kind of  minimalism myself. I am a bit obsessed usefulness and limiting waste. These two principles where my guidelines when packing our stuff from London. It meant countless trips to charity shops, recycling centres and posts on Freecycle. It’s like Craig’s List but everything is free. And there are local groups almost everywhere in the world. I highly recommend using it instead of throwing away decent stuff or even buying new.

(1) source: Textile Beat