For a while I’d had the idea to do a head-to-toe profile of modern urban couture, so I thought that I’d start today. In an increasingly interconnected world, the way that we dress is an important mode of relatedness. I’ll try to keep it as unisex and lighthearted as possible.
So, starting with the head: I am going to be bold and claim the 59Fifty as the official headgear of the city. What’s a 59Fifty you might ask? It’s the technical term for what we’d colloquially call a baseball cap. And It turned 55 this year:
Up until 1954, players wore many styles of headgear, such as sloughy caps and pillbox styles… So the company developed a fitted cap as the uniform headwear for Major League Baseball. Today this style, known as the 59Fifty, remains the official cap of US ball players.
And its many variations have become a key part of the standard urban wardrobe, be it for an American tourist, a footballer’s wife or a young man aping a rap hero.
There is just something so affirming about seeing one’s city represented on a passerby’s head, be it the city of your origins, or the one you’ve adopted. When growing up in the GTA during the Blue Jays’ back-to-back World Series win, a Blue Jays cap was easily one of the coolest things to have on your head – especially when crossing the border. I liked to represent. It felt like we finally had something beyond the ubiquitous design staple of the New York Yankees cap that we could distinguish ourselves with in the world.
At that time teams only had their official hats available with the exception of the Yankees – of course – who had their standard hat available in three colors. As both specialization and design intensiveness in cities increased over time, there are now dozens of variations on standard team caps designs. They have fashion flexibility and give people the ability to express their individuality, while still being down with their team or city. In my fantasy world of vanity, I would wear a different Blue Jays hat every day. Even toques, which once held the distinction of being the hat to wear if showing off one’s nicely shaped head, have grown brims, taking design cues from baseball caps. Beyond even professional sports, it has become a prevalent form of headwear engaged by fashion brands that aren’t even sports-exclusive.
What is it about the baseball cap I wonder? What about its design has brought citizen after citizen in city after city around the world into line with its fitted decree? What does it say about the relationship between sports, urban identity, and the concept of representing? What does it mean that something so distinctly American has almost passively emerged to dominate casual urban headwear globally?
I feel a boxing day trip to the New Era store coming on…
And now, for a change, not some music:
December 25th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Agreed. And, for me, it always goes backwards. Cool piece.
December 25th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Ahh the old front/back debate never goes cold does it? I don’t remember when hat-to-the-back became cool for anyone other than catchers, but can that be claimed as a post-Hiphop thing? That’s when I first started turning mine around.
I rock the brim to the front or back depending on my mood or visibility requirements. I like it low on my eyes when it goes to the front though…
December 26th, 2008 at 11:22 am
For me, it’s always gone backwards except during actual baseball games as a kid. Hip-hop turned it sideways more than backwards, I’ve thought that’s a goofy look, but it’s self-expression and in the eyes of the beholder. That would be an interesting corollary to this piece, the history of how that hat went backwards. Ken Griffey, Jr. comes to mind as one of the backwards-hat wearing icons but obviously it started well-before him.