Wearing at hat while dining

[quote="Phil Gissen"]How do you know I'm not over 80? Besides, a Buick has a built in Prostate examination that come in very handy when you are wearing a fedora.
All I can say, a fedora looks good on Brad Pitt and he is not over 80. If his fedora can attract Angelie Jolie, it can't be all bad.....................[/]



Rock it Phil!

[Robin Garr]

Thus Robin, are you saying that if I can carry off an eccentric, Tom Wolfe, kind of look, you wouldn't be against wearing a fedora inside at a fine restaurant.

Yeah, I didn't set out to reach that goal, Phil, but now that we're there, I think I could go for it. It would require walking a fine line of classy eccentricity, though, and it would have to be the right restaurant. I think the silver cane and white linen suit would be mandatory.

Sometimes etiquette crosses into the area of enforced convention. As a former member of what I will clumsily call "the Woodstock Nation," if we didn't question convention and conformity, music, art, literature, and most importantly, social and political concepts would have remained antediluvian and reactionary. I was asking how people felt about hats being worn inside at a restaurant, I didn't expect to be labeled rude, crude, and Philestine. I like my hats and I promise if anyone says my chapeau makes them feel uncomfortable, I will gladly remove it. However, if my face makes them squirm, I am not able to remove that.

1. Placing one's feet on the table in a restaurant bothers me...
2. Parents who don't take control of their screaming/misbehaving kids in a restaurant bothers me...
3. People yapping on a cell phone (emergencies excluded) in a restaurant bothers me...
4. People smoking cigarettes (NOT cigars) in a restaurant bothers me....
5. And I can probably think of a few others, but men wearing hats in a restaurant doesn't bother me....in that regard, it's your hat and your head, not mine.

The general attitude being expressed about the acceptability of wearing a hat indoors just further demonstrates the overall decline in civilization. People are too much about themselves and not what is appropriate or acceptable in a situation. If you look back in the 50s and earlier a gentleman would rather be dead then being caught wearing a hat of any kind indoors. Of course there are many other thing that have deteriorated during the same time but this is certainly a glaring example of the trend. I suppose those advocating wearing their hat indoors also don't take them off for the playing of the National Anthem when at sporting event!

Are you serious?

The "rosy color glasses" argument fails miserably because it focuses on all that was great at a certain time (the 50s) and purposefully overlooks all that was not so great. Such an argument also looks at time as static and absolute. We, though, live in a fluid and dynamic society - in which change makes us always reevaluate what is good/right and why it is good/right.

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I'm concerned about the absolute language displayed in some of the posts -- for examples, "period, "never," "just one of the basic rules of etiquette," etc.

Let's be clear here - etiquette is not something that exists outside of people. People create, enact, and uphold the rules of etiquette. These people do so with certain agendas in mind. To agree or not to agree with the conventions (the term Phil used) of etiquette is a social choice made by an individual in reaction to social forces. The choice to go agree with a certain expectation/norm/convention or not agree comes with consequences. So the real question is not whether it is appropriate (a totally subjective element) but, instead, what are the consequences of doing/not doing?

Etiquette rules are social gates - to prove whether you know how to act in a given situation. "How to act," though, is a subjective creation, made by certain people at a certain time with certain goals in mind.

I wear my hat inside the restaurant EVERY DAY.

I think this is the lamest topic I have seen on here yet, but I am a newby to this forum.

I think this is the lamest topic I have seen on here yet, but I am a newby to this forum.

Newbie or not, I agree with you..... as the wise Shock G of Digital Underground once eloquently spoke, "Wear what you like" . Truly prophetic words that I never thought I would have to repeat.

Wear what you like is fine , but, when you ask for opinions on this forum, expect to get many , and varied, even about whether or not to wear a hat inside.

I was reared to never ever wear a hat indoors...so much so, that I rarely wear a hat, at all, to this day. While I admire your feeling of bringing back a nice bit of style, I feel the hat should be dis-carded upon entering a building, doubly so while dining.

Wear what you like is fine , but, when you ask for opinions on this forum, expect to get many , and varied, even about whether or not to wear a hat inside.

Couldn't agree more.

Two guys enter a restaurant. One removes his cap and the other one does not.

The server arrives and takes the beverage order from the hatless gentleman and leaves.

I a few minutes, she returns with the beverage order and asks him what if he wants soup or salad. He replies that he would like a garden salad and the server thanks him and leaves, again without acknowledging the hattted one.

In a few minutes she returns with his salad and takes his entree order. As she starts to leave the gent in the hat asks politely if she isn't going to take his order.

Oh, I am so sorry. I thought you were leaving.

I do find it rather interesting that many of you are intensely vehement in your belief that wearing a hat inside displays horrific etiquette and manners. However, criticizing another person for their difference of opinion with derisive and belittling language is considered appropriately witty and urbane. I guess I come from a different place and time. Thanks for allowing me a window into this insight.

[Robin Garr]

I do find it rather interesting that many of you are intensely vehement in your belief that wearing a hat inside displays horrific etiquette and manners. However, criticizing another person for their difference of opinion with derisive and belittling language is considered appropriately witty and urbane. I guess I come from a different place and time. Thanks for allowing me a window into this insight.

Phil, there's been a lot of serious discussion of people's varying upbringing and impressions of etiquette in this thread, and there's been a fair amount of joking. I honestly have not seen "derisive and belittling language" aimed at anybody here. Perhaps I'm insensitive, but if you can point it out to me, I'll do what I can to make it stop.

I do find it rather interesting that many of you are intensely vehement in your belief that wearing a hat inside displays horrific etiquette and manners. However, criticizing another person for their difference of opinion with derisive and belittling language is considered appropriately witty and urbane. I guess I come from a different place and time. Thanks for allowing me a window into this insight.

A lot of it is how we were raised in this area. You are living on the border of the South, where we have a weird blend of Southern charm and Midwest sensibility. Its not quite the South, and its not quite the Midwest, we are almost an island. I think the hat thing keeps lessening in its degree of rudeness with each generation. My grandmother would have yelled "No hats in the house" when you walked inside her house. My mother would have knocked that hat off your head only when you tried sitting at the table with it. To me, it honestly just depends on where you are at and what the situation is. This is just my opinion, but nicer restaurant, no hats unless you are dining outside, sports bar, and more casual places, wear whatever you like. I liken it to a wearing a shirt with a witty, yet slightly crude phrase printed on it. Good for a laugh at a bar, sure to be frowned on at a restaurant. I think if you have to think about whether it is appropriate, you probably should not wear it.

That being said, there are trendier places where wearing a fedora to dinner would be hip. I was out for a drink on Thursday night, and a lady was wearing a fedora at her table. I thought it was a very cool look for her, and she was able to pull it off and look nice wearing it.

Some folks can pull off a fedora in a restaurant--those who can carry it off would never ask if it is appropriate.