I'm not Eurotrash, nor am I impersonating Sherlock Holmes in a desperate cry for help. I've heard all the carbon-copied remarks and a few compliments. I'm a young American, and I wear an ivy dress. Beyond fashion statements and religious observance is the simple fondness for headgear. This affinity has earned me thoughtless inquisition, intolerance, and the bygone flashes of self-consciousness.
Cheese cutter, sharpie, pimpster, and "old English guy hat" are common colloquialisms for "ivy dress." Being a heavy pipe smoker at the time, I selected my first such wool crown from a department store with much reservation about its conspicuousness. A punk beneath an ignoble ball cap had been taken out and shot that week. At the precocious age of 19, the true realization of an adolescent eccentricity had come to fruition.
From Indiana Jones to fugitive Hannibal Lecter, a tasteful hat tops off the debonair while being perceived as a trademark. A comfortable, distinguished hat is a rewarding garment which I find indispensable. However, each style of hat draws its own set of stereotypes.
Being a hat man isn't all glamour. An ugly hag at the plasma place serenaded me with the opening bars of the Inspector Gadget theme song. People presume I'm either French or dying for attention. A teacher "cap gunned" me when I was in junior high school. I once shaved my head to imitate complete male pattern baldness.
That's right. Knowing I'd be forced to remove my hat before getting photographed for my state identification card, it was obvious that a statement had to be made. That coupled with the fact that I had nothing better to do than watch infomercials. I was barely old enough to vote, but wise enough to know what I might look like in old age. Yes, I was immensely proud to buy cigarettes.
Caveat: Sherlock Holmes wore a deerslayer and I wear an ivy dress. Likening the two hats is foolish. Furthermore, the assumption that every distinctive garment is worn merely to make a statement speaks of John Q. Douchebag's presumptuousness. A man once asked me if I was trying to look French. I curtly answered that I was not. He then asked me what I was "trying to look like."
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