Why Are Hats So Popular in New Orleans?

Promoting colored straw fedoras all over the city

Last episode, I promised to provide an online tour of the statues that are in the Poydras Street neutral ground, and I know that regular readers who follow this blog have been sitting on the edge of their futons waiting to read my modern public art critique.  Sorry to disappoint, as we sometimes do here on the 2200 block of Esplanade Avenue.  Just read our reviews.  

If you don't mind, not that you have any choice in the matter, I'd like to pause in our overall narrative arc, such as it is, to discuss the popularity of hats in New Orleans.  You'll see a lot of men wearing hats if you come to visit.  You'll see a lot of women wearing hats, too, but men in New Orleans love hats.  Your humble narrator is one of those.  I always wear a hat.

We had brunch at La Crêpe Nanou this afternoon and a couple came in who had dyed their hair the same color.  I didn't have my camera with me, and it would have been rude, anyway, to snap a pic of them, so I'll give you a picture of the outside of La Crêpe Nanou instead:

Yummy Yummy, North Carrolton Ave, New Orleans, La

Well, I looked through my files and I couldn't find the Crêpe Nanou pictures.  Here's a picture of the Yummy Yummy Chinese Restaurant on North Carrolton Avenue instead.  You'll have to use your imagination.  Pretend it's La Crêpe Nanou.  I wrote about La Crêpe Nanou a few weeks ago.  You can read that scintillating illustrated post here.  

The couple who had dyed their hair the same color looked like darned fools, if I can be excused for observing so.  I'm very accepting of eccentricity, being a crank, myself, but something wasn't working with the magenta hair pairing.  I figured one of them had bought the bottle of dye at Walgreens and there was plenty left over---why can't we both do it?  "---Sure, I love ya, baby."

Plenty of people look like darned fools sometimes, your humble narrator included.  That isn't something we should hold against anyone when we meet them.  Foolishness is something that needs to be proven.  Some people may be misguided, but that isn't a black mark against them, even if they have dyed their hair magenta in solidarity, or love, or mutual respect, or whatever tomfool I-Dream-of-Jeannie reason they might claim.

I said to Frau Schmitt that we should do that, dye our hair the same color.  This way people will know we're a couple, as if our wedding rings weren't proof enough.  Plus, it would be a kind of branding.  If our guests see somebody with hair of a color not found in nature (magenta) they would know they were bumping into one of their hosts.  The La Belle Esplanade Magenta Squad (TM)!!

"This isn't one of your best ideas," Frau Schmitt said, and she is usually right about these things.  She is especially right because it would be her walking around with magenta hair all day.  Me, I'd be wearing a hat.  I love to wear hats.  

For me, it would be like having the word 'KICK' tattooed on one buttock and 'ME' tattooed on the other.  Who would know?  It's not like I walk around New Orleans without pants.  It's the same way I wear a hat.  My hat covers my microencephaly.

A trio of jokers

When people ask me where to buy a hat in New Orleans, I always send them to Meyer the Hatter.  It is the oldest and largest hat store in the South.  The shop is on the first block of St. Charles Avenue, just off Canal Street.  They don't have the least expensive selection, only the best.  If you want to buy a flimsy cheap hat made in China, there is always the French Market at the end of our street.  If you want to buy a Mexican-made straw hat, of which I own one, there is a shop for that.  If you want a Goorin Brothers hat, there are two Goorin locations in New Orleans.  I can tell you where to go.  If you want a quality hat that will fit you, and suit you, and last you a lifetime: go old school.  Go to Meyer the Hatter.

Why are hats popular in New Orleans?  It isn't because people are ashamed of their bad dye jobs.  It isn't because most New Orleans men are bald either.  It's because people like to dress up in New Orleans.  This is a city that hews to tradition.  Nobody in New Orleans stopped wearing hats because JFK had a good head of hair.  They never stopped wearing hats.  When you look good, you feel good.  Everybody knows that.  Not everybody knows how to look good, but people who live in New Orleans know exactly how to do just that.  It's a way of life.  Je ne c'est quoi, bébé.   That's why hats are common in New Orleans.  They shade the eyes and enhance a person's profile and public persona.  

Why wear a hat in New Orleans?  Because that's what people here do.  When in New Orleans, forget your cares.  You may look foolish anywhere else, but you won't look foolish here.  New Orleans loves you.

À votre santé,

La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.