Hat etiquette
“He can’t think without his hat.”

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

What’s the current thinking about men wearing hats indoors?

Growing up, I was taught that a gentleman takes off his hat whenever he enters a building. Therefore I wasn’t surprised when, in an early episode of The Sopranos, Tony takes offence at a fellow diner’s wearing a baseball cap in an upmarket restaurant. The restaurant owner is embarrassed but powerless so Tony walks over to the table and “persuades” the (initially reluctant) young man to remove his cap. I took this as evidence that David Chase, the show’s writer/producer, believes the rule about not wearing hats inside still holds firm.

But in The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), Sir Nayland Smith, the eminent Scotland Yard detective, leaves his hat on throughout a lengthy conversation in a suspect’s office. Though, given that he takes off his hat in every other interior scene, this single instance might signify contempt for the criminal class.

This morning I saw some news footage of Saddam Hussein meeting with his generals. They were all wearing their berets in the conference room whereas Saddam was bareheaded. He does have a hat though, which he wears whenever he holds his rifle in one hand and fires a few shots into the air whilst celebrating his weapons of mass destruction. In this case, he’s outside—on a balcony or a podium. Saddam clearly understands hat etiquette though his generals seem not to. Perhaps he’s just too well-mannered to order them to take their hats off during meetings.

I know how Saddam feels. In a Flash class I taught a month ago, two of the students wore their baseball caps the entire time. Even if I hadn’t felt like the restaurant owner in The Sopranos, I could hardly ask them to take off their caps because at the end of the course I had to hand each student their free baseball cap!

So, is it acceptable for men to wear hats indoors? I followed Michael Webb’s advice and asked AnswerBus, a natural language search engine.

The most useful response was a complete guide to hat etiquette by Gary Warth, staff writer for The Village Hat Shop. Although Mr Warth doesn’t actually answer the question—no doubt he’s reluctant to offend prospective customers who see nothing shameful in wearing a hat indoors—his reveals his true sympathies by quoting Miss Manners and Emily Post:

“Hat-wearers must be careful when putting something on the hatband… Anything put on the band of a man’s hat must be on the left side, and anything on a woman’s hatband must be on the right.”
“Women should keep their hats on in homes holding christenings, weddings and funerals, because in those occasions the house is treated as if it were a house of worship.”
“A gentleman must take off his hat when a woman enters an elevator in an apartment building or a hotel, as those are considered dwellings. He puts it on again in the hall, because a public corridor is like a street. In public buildings, however, the elevator is also considered public, and the hat can stay on.”
“Men tip or lift their hat only to strangers, not to friends, although a man would lift the hat if he encountered his wife. A hat also is tipped to a woman when passing in a narrow space or when the man speaks to her. If a man runs into a female acquaintance, he must take his hat off when talking to her, but can put it back on if they start walking.”
Tony Soprano understood: a society with no respect for hat etiquette is only a step away from lawlessness.