“If you want to get ahead...”
Seen today as an eccentric choice, the Bowler hat was designed by Lock's of St James sold in 1850, at a cost of 12 shillings. It was the hard hat of its day, a supremely practical item of headgear for working men of all classes, first designed to be worn by gamekeepers patrolling the estates of the landed gentry. Over the course of the last century, the bowler came largely to be associated in the public mind with City gents, but it has made some surprising appearances elsewhere, from Liza Minnelli's in the film Cabaret to the heads of tribeswomen in South America. Nowadays the black bowler hat is very popular amongst officers who wear then for memorial parades.
By Ze Landum
