3 days ago
Hat Trick: On the Endurance of the Bucket Hat
One of my cardinal rules is to never begin a piece of writing by talking about how difficult it was to begin the piece of writing. Leave that to the bad wedding speeches. But when Vogue asked me if I would write an article about bucket hats, I had no choice. I wanted to do it, but I couldn't muster a single thought on the subject. I mean, it's a hat. What more is there to say?
Of all the hats, the bucket hat in particular was completely meaningless to me. I tried to spark something by researching the history. I learned that the bucket hat was originally created for Irish fishermen and became fashionable in the 1980s when it gained a foothold in the hip-hop scene, finding fans among LL Cool J and Run-D.M.C. That was what I had. One sentence, for an entire article on bucket hats.
As I was thinking of a good reason I could tell Vogue why I wouldn't be able to do it, they followed up on their original email, telling me they would be sending me different bucket hats for the article: two hats from Prada, two from Tory Burch, and two from The North Face. Maybe the reason bucket hats were so meaningless to me was because I never tried the right one. Maybe I needed a bucket hat from Prada. I immediately emailed them back, saying I'd love to do the article along with my address for the hats. It was about to be summer, and I wasn't going to pass up six designer hats just because I couldn't write more than a sentence about them.
A few email exchanges later, I realized the hats would need to be returned after the article. So not only would I not be keeping any hats, I was also on the hook for returning them—a task I am even more incapable of.
