A Brief History Of The Fedora

A white fedora hat may make you look like a gangster, but this popular hat type didn’t always have those associations. The hat was introduced during the late 19th century and became popular with the women’s rights movement, after it was worn by a notorious cross dresser of the time. During the 1920s it became an important fashion accessory for men, especially after the Prince of Wales took to wearing one. However, the white colored hat was also often associated with prohibition and gangsters around this time. In the 1940s and ’50s, the fedora was a staple of many movies of the period, and the 1970s saw an increase in popularity, after a decline in the ’60s. But it may have been the 1980s that did more than any other period to popularize the fedora, when Harrison Ford as Indian Jones wore the hat in the three movies.