60 Fun Facts About Hat

Which world-famous London hat shop, founded in 1676, claims to be the oldest hat shop in the world?

The Lock family, descendants of James Lock who inherited the business from his master in 1759, still own and run the shop at 6 St James's Street.

The Sorting Hat assigns Hogwarts first-years to one of how many houses?

The Hat sits on each new student's head and announces Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin.

Which veteran British actor voiced the Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter films?

Phillips was best known for his suave 'Ding dong!' comedy persona from the Carry On films long before he lent his voice to Hogwarts.

What colours are the stripes on the tall top hat worn by Dr. Seuss's Cat in the Hat?

The 1957 book was written to replace the dull Dick and Jane primers, and its title came from the first two rhyming words Geisel found on a restricted vocabulary list.

Who played the title role in the poorly received 2003 live-action film The Cat in the Hat?

The film was greenlit after Universal's Grinch movie did well, but critics savaged its humour, pacing and unfaithfulness to the book, and it disappointed at the box office.

Which fictional detective is so linked to the deerstalker cap that some call the cap by his first name?

Conan Doyle never named the cap; illustrator Sidney Paget, who wore one himself, put it on Holmes and the image stuck.

The Mexican sombrero takes its name from a Spanish word meaning what?

In Spanish, sombrero can mean any hat at all; the giant charro version is properly a sombrero de charro.

Despite its name, the Panama hat is traditionally woven in which country?

The hats got their name because they were shipped through the Isthmus of Panama on their way to markets abroad.

The 'ten-gallon' hat is linked to which hatmaker, founded in Philadelphia in 1865?

John B. Stetson's first western design, the 'Boss of the Plains', stayed in production for more than 150 years.

The bowler hat is known by what alternative name in the United States?

American outlaw Marion Hedgepeth was nicknamed 'the Derby Kid', and Lucius Beebe called the bowler 'the hat that won the West'.

Which US president popularised the tall stovepipe style of top hat and famously carried papers inside it?

One of his silk hats is on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.

Which whip-cracking film archaeologist re-popularised the fedora?

The character who hands over the hat in the 1912-set prologue of The Last Crusade is credited simply as 'Fedora'.

Fans of which sport throw their hats onto the playing surface when a player scores three goals?

One origin story credits Guelph's Biltmore Hat Company, which gave a free fedora to any Mad Hatters junior player who scored three.

The term 'hat-trick' was coined in 1858 in which sport?

Bowler H. H. Stephenson took three wickets with three consecutive balls, and fans passed a hat round to buy him one as a reward.

Which soft, round, flat-crowned cap became a symbol of Basque identity and of artists?

Mass production began in the Basque Country in the 19th century, and the first factory, Beatex-Laulhere, claims records back to 1810.

What is the red felt cylindrical hat with a black tassel, once official Ottoman headwear, called?

The name may come from the Moroccan city where the crimson berry dye was sourced; Tommy Cooper made it a comedy icon.

The Russian fur hat with fold-down ear flaps, the ushanka, takes its name from the Russian word for what?

The Red Army only adopted it after the Winter War, copying the fur hats the better-equipped Finns had worn since 1936.

The Hebrew word 'kippah', the name of the Jewish skullcap, literally means what?

The Yiddish name yarmulke is often linked to the Aramaic phrase yire malka, 'fear of the King'.

The word 'milliner' for a hat-maker derives from the name of which Italian city?

It originally meant a Milanese merchant selling fancy bonnets, gloves and cutlery, and only from 1713 came to mean a woman making bonnets.

The fedora hat is named after an 1882 play written for which famous French actress?

Bernhardt wore a soft centre-creased hat as Princess Fédora Romazoff, and the style was first a women's fashion before men took it up in the 1920s.

The trilby hat got its name from the stage adaptation of an 1894 novel by which author?

A hat of the style was worn in the first London production of the play, and it was promptly dubbed 'a Trilby hat'.

The bowler hat was created in 1849 as a hard, low-crowned hat to protect which workers from low branches?

Legend says Edward Coke stamped on the finished hat twice to test it before paying 12 shillings.

Which British general adopted a black beret with two badges as his trademark during the Second World War?

The black beret had been approved for the Royal Tank Corps by King George V in 1924 because it stayed on while climbing through tank hatches.

Which future British king popularised the homburg hat in the 1890s?

He brought the style back from the German spa town of Bad Homburg and was flattered when others copied it.

'Mad as a hatter' is popularly traced to hat-makers poisoned by which element used in felt-making?

The tremors, slurred speech and hallucinations were so common in Danbury, Connecticut, that they were called the 'Danbury Shakes'.

Where did the Straw Hat Riot of 1922, when youths smashed men's straw hats after summer's end, take place?

It lasted eight days and peaked with a mob of about 1,000 hat-destroyers, since men were not supposed to wear straw after September 15.

Which US president was photographed in a Panama hat at the canal site in 1906, boosting its popularity?

Demand had already surged decades earlier when gold-rush prospectors crossing the isthmus bought them for the sun.

Which leader banned the fez in Turkey in 1925 as part of a modernising 'Hat Revolution'?

Ironically, Sultan Mahmud II had imposed the fez a century earlier for the same reason: to modernise and to replace the turban.

The British foot guards' bearskin caps were adopted by the Grenadier Guards after which 1815 victory?

The tall caps came from the French Imperial Guard they had just beaten; each British cap uses one whole bear skin.

Workers from which country introduced the bowler hats worn by Bolivia's Aymara and Quechua women in the 1920s?

For years a factory in Italy made the bombín for the Bolivian market before local production took over.

Which James Bond henchman uses a razor-edged bowler hat as a weapon in Goldfinger?

Bowlers were also worn by Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp, Laurel and Hardy, and John Steed of The Avengers.

Which style of hat was famously worn sideways by Napoleon?

The bicorne evolved from the tricorne, and its 'chapeau-bras' variants folded flat to be tucked under the arm indoors.

Which US president was nicknamed "The Last Cocked Hat" for sticking with the tricorne after it fell from fashion?

The first five presidents, from Washington on, all wore the three-cornered style; enlisted soldiers had swapped it for the shako around 1800.

The Basque beret was traditionally the headwear of shepherds from which mountain range?

The Basques themselves call it a txapela, and a giant commemorative black beret is a common trophy in Basque sport.

The flat-crowned straw hat with a grosgrain ribbon takes its English name from which pastime?

It derives from the canotier straw hat worn by Venetian gondoliers, and Coco Chanel helped make it fashionable for women.

At Royal Ascot, women in the Royal Enclosure must wear a hat with a solid base of at least what diameter?

Men in the same enclosure must wear morning dress and a top hat, and newcomers need a sponsor who has attended for at least four years.

Which NFL head coach's trademark fedora is depicted on his cenotaph in the Texas State Cemetery?

The Dallas Cowboys wore a fedora patch on their uniforms during the 2000 season in his memory.

Which Belgian surrealist painted The Son of Man, a bowler-hatted man whose face is hidden by a green apple?

His painting Golconda shows dozens of identical bowler-hatted men raining from the sky.

The traditional weaving of the toquilla straw hat was added to which UNESCO list in December 2012?

The finest 'Montecristi superfino' hats are said to hold water and pass through a wedding ring when rolled.

Since 1993, which company has been the exclusive supplier of on-field caps to Major League Baseball?

The Detroit Tigers of 1901 were the first major-league team to put a mascot, a red tiger, on their cap.

In 1919, E. W. Bullard patented the first widely used industrial safety hat, made of steamed canvas, glue and black paint. What was it called?

Bullard was inspired by the steel helmet he had brought home from World War I, and the US Navy soon ordered shipyard versions.

Chief engineer Joseph Strauss made hard hats compulsory on which landmark, begun in 1933?

Strauss also installed safety nets beneath the deck, an unusual precaution for the era.

Which fraternal organisation made the red fez its official headgear in 1872?

The fez was also adopted by Gravity Falls' Grunkle Stan and by Matt Smith's fez-loving Eleventh Doctor in Doctor Who.

Which milliner designed Princess Beatrice's 'pretzel' fascinator for the 2011 royal wedding?

He was discovered by Isabella Blow, worked out of her Belgravia basement, and received a royal warrant from Queen Camilla in 2024.

Pharrell's oversized 'Buffalo' hat at the 2014 Grammys came from which designer's 1982-83 collection?

The hat spawned its own Twitter account, and Pharrell had already worn a similar Westwood one back in 2009.

Which president wore a black homburg instead of a top hat at his 1953 inauguration?

Kennedy brought the top hat back in 1961 but delivered his speech hatless; no president has worn one for the ceremony since 1965.

Louis Comte's 1814 trick that forever tied the top hat to magicians involved pulling what out of it?

The gibus, a spring-loaded collapsible top hat from about 1840, made the same silhouette practical for the opera cloakroom.

Norway's royal guards wear plumed bowler hats copied from which Italian regiment?

The bowler was barely a decade old at the time, having been made for a Norfolk gamekeeper's employer in 1849.

An NHL 'Gordie Howe hat trick' consists of a goal, an assist and what else in the same game?

Howe himself only recorded two of them; Rick Tocchet holds the record with 18.

Who is credited with making the first silk top hat in England, in 1793?

The invention is often wrongly attributed to haberdasher John Hetherington, whose supposed arrest for frightening passers-by is a much-repeated legend.

The phrase 'mad as a hatter' first appeared in print in 1829 in which publication?

That is several decades before Lewis Carroll's Hatter appeared in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

The 5,000-year-old iceman Ötzi was found wearing a cap made from the fur of which animal?

It had a chin strap and was stitched from several hides, essentially a Russian fur hat without the flaps.

The word 'ten-gallon' hat is thought to derive from the Spanish 'galón', meaning what?

The 'ten' referred to the number of braids on the hatband, not the crown's liquid capacity, though Stetson ads happily showed cowboys watering horses from their hats.

Which French mountain corps, created in 1888, first wore the beret as standard military headgear?

British General Hugh Elles saw them in the First World War and proposed the beret for the new Royal Tank Regiment.

The earliest known depiction of a turban is on a sculpture from which ancient civilisation?

A style called the phakeolis was still being worn by Byzantine soldiers thousands of years later.

The standard bearskin cap of the British foot guards is made from the fur of which animal?

Officers' caps use thicker brown-bear fur dyed black; the caps stand 11 inches at the front and 16 at the rear.

What was the name of John B. Stetson's original 1865 Western hat, his first design?

Stetson had headed west from New Jersey for his health before founding his Philadelphia company; Custer allegedly wore one at Little Bighorn.

Stetson University in Florida, named for the hatmaker in 1899, calls its athletic teams what?

The official mascot is known as 'John B.'

Panama hats are woven from the plaited leaves of which palm-like plant?

Known locally as the toquilla or Jipijapa palm, it is not a true palm at all.

Which 17th-century Dutch painter's fondness for the beret may have started its link with artists?

Mass production of berets began in the 19th century in the Basque Country, where they were already everyday headwear.