Possibly the first thing I’m willing to admit about my wardrobe is that I have too many hats. As a very small child I would not leave the house without a baseball cap, and I’ve returned to wearing them more in recent years. My time working in the menswear industry started at a hat shop, where I wore and sold fedoras, panama hats, and flat caps. Even so, for a long time I resisted wearing a bucket hat, even though I sometimes liked the look of it on other people. This supremely casual style of hat didn’t seem to fit with how I dressed, until one day I discovered that it did.
The bucket hat is an extremely simple design – a cloth hat with a downward-sloping brim all the way around its circumference. Unlike felt or straw hats which are almost always made of a single piece, the bucket hat is sewn together from cut panels, more like a flat cap or baseball cap. Its stitched cloth construction makes the bucket hat foldable, packable, and easily cleaned and reshaped. The bucket hat has its origins in wool hats worn in the British Isles for farm work or outdoor pursuits. Usually made of tweed, these hats were tough and naturally resisted the elements and remain a part of British hunting attire today.
With the expansion of the US Military in the early 20th Century, the US Army began purchasing a simple hat made of blue or brown denim with a four-panel crown for soldier’s working uniforms. Intended for wear while doing cleaning or construction work behind the lines, this hat doesn’t figure much in media of the period. In the mid 1930s, though, the US was mired in the Great Depression. The Roosevelt Administration created the Civilian Conservation Corps, which provided jobs to young men from poor families who did millions of man-hours of work building and maintaining national parks and other public sites. This “Forest Army” was outfitted by raiding supply stores of World War 1-era US Army uniforms, and the Army’s fatigue bucket hat became an extremely visible symbol of the CCC’s heroic efforts in combating the Depression, showing up in posters promoting the program, statues commemorating it, and in thousands of photos of CCC men at work.
A green herringbone twill version of the same hat, nicknamed the “Daisy Mae” after a character from the Little Abner comic, was worn by soldiers throughout the Second World War, particularly in the Pacific Theater. The British and Commonwealth forces adopted a similar, flat-topped cotton bucket hat late in the war, which continues to see service in modified versions today. The Soviets created a stitched cotton hat in 1938 which they called the “Panamka,” as it was intended to be worn in hot weather like a panama hat. The Panamka would remain in service through the end of the Soviet Union, becoming well known for its use during the highly-publicized Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s
While the bucket hat’s practicality made it extremely popular for military use, it was equally successful in civilian life, not only as workwear but as a fashion item. The fisherman’s hat version, which usually has a grosgrain ribbon band around it in the style of a fedora, was a casual staple in the mid-twentieth century and has surged in popularity again with renewed interest in Ivy Style clothing, pairing naturally with a button-down shirt and khakis or madras shorts.
The bucket hat has been a hit with a variety of music genres and subcultures, starting with Britain’s Mods in the 1950s who paired it with tailored suits and army parkas. It also spread to the British rock scene of the 60s and 70s, but it is most famously associated with an American art form – hip hop. About 45 seconds into Sugar Hill Gang’s 1979 performance of Rapper’s Delight on the Soap Factory Disco Show, Big Bank Hank takes the mic while wearing a mauve hat in the same general cut as the old Army model “Daisy Mae.” This look, on a recording which became Sugar Hill Gang’s official music video for their hit debut single, set the bucket hat as a cornerstone of streetwear and hip-hop fashion for the 80s and 90s.
For a long time I had associated the bucket hat solely with hiking and outdoor festivals, and I didn’t see the appeal of such a utilitarian, even ugly hat. The bucket hat is casual, yes. It has its roots in workwear, and can be worn naturally with militaria, casual streetwear, beach outfits, or a simple rugby shirt and jeans. But what caught my attention was seeing people wearing it with tailored clothing and neckties. Like many guys, I’d come to menswear through tailoring and saw clothing’s appeal in impeccable tailored fits where everything was on the same level of formality. Over time my interest drifted to more casual tailoring, and I was looking at ways to dress down my suits and sportcoats. I discovered that bucket hats could pair naturally with more casual tailoring like tweed jackets, cotton or linen summer suits, and even more relaxed wool materials like flannel or fresco. It allows you to lower the overall formality of an outfit, while looking – to me at least – more intentional than a ballcap would with the same suit or jacket.
As I’ve become more interested in mixing levels of formality in the same outfit, the bucket hat provided a nice bridge between casual and dressy. More laid-back than a fedora, more adult than a baseball cap, and more contemporary than a flat cap, a nice bucket hat hits a sweet spot of casualness that seems almost joyful. For want of a better description, the bucket hat is just hanging out, working with the other clothes without monopolizing the conversation. Its an easygoing style which isn’t inherently tied to any period or genre, but is still a bit of a statement.
Eric Langlois
Eric Langlois is a writer, menswear professional, and history enthusiast based on the North Shore of Massachusetts.
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