Hat & Headwear Definitions — hats, caps, helmets and headwear terms from Apparel Search
A top hat is a kind of tall, flat-crowned, broad-brimmed hat worn by men, and it was especially common in the 19th century. Top hats were made from stiffened felt made from beaver fur or from silk. A popular American version was the stovepipe hat, straight like piping rather than wider at the top and bottom, and often taller than the typical top hat.
Later on, top-hats were sometimes given an internal hinged frame, making them collapsible. Such hats are often called "opera hats", though the term can be synonymous with any top-hat, or any tall formal men's hat.
Top-hats are sometimes associated with stage magic.
| The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/top_hat 5/13/05 |
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The top hat is recognised by proportion before anything else. The crown is tall and flat on top, rising well above the head in a straight, formal column, and around its base runs a broad brim. That combination separates it from lower, rounder hats: a bowler is low and domed, a cap has only a forward peak, but a top hat carries its height openly, and the flat crown keeps the outline crisp rather than curved. It was worn by men, and it was especially common in the 19th century, when the tall hat formed part of respectable formal and everyday dress for men who could afford one. Its associations run with morning dress and formalwear, settings where an upright, immaculate hat completes a carefully ordered outfit rather than serving as casual covering.
Materials explain how that shape was possible. Top hats were made from stiffened felt made from beaver fur, or from silk. A tall crown cannot stand in soft, unstiffened material, so the body of the hat had to be firm enough to hold its flat top and straight sides through wear, handling and storage. Beaver-fur felt provided a fine, dense body that could be stiffened into form, while silk gave the hat a smooth, dressy surface. In both cases the craft lay in keeping a large shape exact: the crown must stay flat, the sides must not collapse inward, and the broad brim must stay level. A top hat that lost its stiffness lost the quality that defined it, which is why material and construction matter as much to the definition as height does.
The best-known variation is the stovepipe hat, a popular version particularly in the United States in the 19th century. Unlike many top hats, this version was straight, like piping, and was not wider at the top and the bottom. Often stovepipe hats were taller than the typical top hat, pushing the defining feature of the style, its height, even further. The name itself describes the shape: a pipe stands straight and uniform, and a stovepipe hat rises from the brim in the same even way. When comparing the two forms, the test is the profile of the crown. A crown that flares or varies between top and base belongs to the general top-hat family; a crown that runs straight and unusually tall is the stovepipe form.
A later development answered a practical problem with tall hats: where to put one in a crowded indoor setting. Top hats were sometimes given an internal hinged frame, making them collapsible, so the hat could be flattened for storage and opened again for wear. Such hats are often called opera hats, a name that suits a hat designed to be carried into an evening venue and set aside during a performance, though the term can be synonymous with any top hat, or with any tall formal men's hat, so it should not be treated as a separate shape. Beyond formal dress, top hats are sometimes associated with stage magic, where the tall, hollow crown became a familiar part of the magician's image. That association, like the formal one, grows out of the same facts of construction: a high, stiff, flat-crowned hat is both a mark of formal dress and an object with real space inside its crown.
A top hat has a tall, flat crown and a broad brim. Its height and flat top give it the upright, formal silhouette that made it a standard part of men's dress in the 19th century.
Top hats were made from stiffened felt made from beaver fur, or from silk. The stiffening held the tall crown upright and kept the broad brim in shape.
Later top hats were sometimes given an internal hinged frame so they could collapse. Such hats are often called opera hats, though the term can be used for any top hat or any tall formal men's hat.