Source: Freddy O / Freddy O
NATIONAL HAT DAY
Hang on to your hats and celebrate in style on National Hat Day. Celebrated each year on January 15th, don your favorite fedora, cap, cloche, derby or sunhat. Dig out your ceremonial best and tell the story behind it. Wear your warmest tuque, stocking cap, beanie and share the name you give it. There are so many hats, fashions and names we give them. Certainly, we could wear a hat a day and never get through them all.
- Hats may be worn for safety and protection, religious reasons, ceremonial reasons, warmth or fashion.
- In the Middle Ages, hats were an indicator of social status.
- In the military, hats may denote one’s nationality, branch of service, rank and/or regiment.
- A Thebes tomb painting depicts one of the first pictorials of a hat. The painting shows a man wearing a conical straw hat.
- Structured hats for women began to be worn in the late 16th century.
- Millinery is the designing and manufacture of hats.
- The term “milliner” derived from the city of Milan, Italy. The best quality hats were made in Milan in the 18th century.
- Millinery began as traditionally a woman’s occupation, as the milliner not only created hats and bonnets but also chose lace, trim and accessories to complete an outfit.
- In the middle of the 1920s, to replace the bonnets and wide-brimmed hats, women began to wear smaller hats that hugged their heads.
Depending on where you live, if you are outside in the middle of a cold January, you may definitely want to wear a hat on National Hat Day!
Source: Pharoh Martin / Urban One Inc.
HOW TO OBSERVE #NationalHatDay
Celebrate an era or an occupation. Learn the history of a particular hat or try making a paper hat.
Be sure to wear a hat and use #NationalHatDay to post on social media.
Educators, visit the National Day Calendar® Classroom for lessons designed around National Hat Day.
NATIONAL HAT DAY HISTORY
Since at least 1983, National Hat Day has been observed in libraries, schools, and museums across the country. They invited students and patrons to wear their favorite hats or hats of their occupation. People of all ages show up in pirate hats and football helmets. Patrol officers, postal workers, restaurant servicers also wear their hats to various events.
