A pork pie hat is one of several different styles of
hat that have been popular since the mid-19th century. It features a flat crown that resembles a traditional
pork pie.
Buster Keaton and the 1920s
The pork pie began to appear in Britain as a man's hat not long after the turn of the century in the fashion style of the ''
man-about-town''. Silent film actor
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is best known for his silent film work, in which his trademark was physical comedy accompanied by a stoic, deadpan expression ...
converted
fedora
A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both side ...
s into straw
boater-like felt pork pies by stiffening their brims with a dried sugar-water solution. This kind of pork pie had a very flat top and similar short flat brim.
1930s and 1940s
The heyday of the pork pie hat occurred during the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, following the straw boater era that peaked in the
Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties, sometimes stylized as Roaring '20s, refers to the 1920s decade in music and fashion, as it happened in Western society and Western culture. It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in th ...
. In this incarnation, the pork pie regained its snap brim and increased slightly in height. Its dished crown became known among
milliner
Hat-making or millinery is the design, manufacture and sale of hats and other headwear. A person engaged in this trade is called a milliner or hatter.
Historically, milliners, typically women shopkeepers, produced or imported an inventory of ...
s as "telescopic crowns" or "tight telescopes" because when worn the top could be made to pop up slightly. Furthermore, as stated in a newspaper clipping from the mid-1930s: "The true pork pie hat is so made that it cannot be worn successfully except when telescoped." The same clipping refers to the hat also as "the bi crowned". Among famous wearers of the pork pie during this era are
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
, whose pork pie hat had a very wide brim and rather tall crown.
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959), nicknamed "Pres" or "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist.
Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie's orchestra, Young was one of the most ...
, whose career as a jazz saxophonist spanned from the mid-1920s to the late 1950s, regularly wore a pork pie hat during his performances, and after his death
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz upright bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader, and author. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians an ...
composed a musical elegy in Young's honor entitled "
Goodbye Pork Pie Hat". Young's pork pie had a broader brim than seen in earlier styles but retained the definitive round, flat, creased crown.
A porkpie hat was a trademark of physicist
Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the
World WarII project that developed the atomic bomb.
In African American culture in the 1940s the pork pie—flashy, feathered, color-coordinated—became associated with the
zoot suit. By 1944 the hat was even prevalent in
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...
.
Post-1950s
After the end of World War II the pork pie's broad popularity declined somewhat, though as a result of the
zoot suit connection it continued its association with African American music culture, particularly
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
,
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the ...
, and
ska. In television between 1951 and 1955,
Art Carney frequently wore one in his characterization of Ed Norton in ''
The Honeymooners
''The Honeymooners'' is an American television sitcom which originally aired from 1955 to 1956, created by and starring Jackie Gleason, and based on a recurring comedy sketch of the same name that had been part of Gleason's variety show. It fo ...
'', and in
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...
the actor
Joaquín Monserrat, known as ''Pacheco'', was the host of many children's 1950s TV shows and was known for his straw pork pie hat and
bow tie
The bow tie is a type of necktie. A modern bow tie is tied using a common shoelace knot, which is also called the bow knot for that reason. It consists of a ribbon of fabric tied around the collar of a shirt in a symmetrical manner so that t ...
—in this incarnation, the pork pie returned to its Buster Keaton style with rigidly flat brim and extremely low flat crown.
In the 1960s in
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispa ...
, the "
rude boy" subculture popularized a hat known as a pork-pie, and brought it back into style in the United Kingdom, thereby influencing its occasional appearance in the
mod and
rave
A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mu ...
subculture. However the rude boy hat is really a tall
trilby
A trilby is a narrow-brimmed type of hat. The trilby was once viewed as the rich man's favored hat; it is sometimes called the "brown trilby" in Britain Roetzel, Bernhard (1999). ''Gentleman's Guide to Grooming and Style''. Barnes & Noble. and ...
, and doesn't resemble other pork pie hats.
The porkpie hat enjoyed a slight resurgence in exposure and popularity after
Gene Hackman
Eugene Allen Hackman (born January 30, 1930) is an American retired actor and former novelist. In a career that has spanned more than six decades, Hackman has won two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, one Screen Actors Guild Award, two BAFTAs ...
's character
Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle
Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle is a fictional character portrayed by actor Gene Hackman in the films '' The French Connection'' (1971) and its sequel, ''French Connection II'' (1975), and by Ed O'Neill in the 1986 television film '' Popeye Doyle'' ...
wore one in the 1971 film ''
The French Connection''. Doyle was based on real-life policeman
Eddie Egan, who played the captain in the film, and his exploits. Egan was famous all his life for wearing a pork pie hat. At about the same time,
Robert De Niro
Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. ( , ; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor. Known for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, he is considered to be one of the best actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades ...
wore a pork pie hat in the 1973 film ''
Mean Streets'' (the same hat he wore when he auditioned for the film).
Contemporary associations
A frequent wearer of pork pie hats is Panamanian Salsa singer and composer
Ruben Blades
Reuben or Reuven is a Biblical male first name from Hebrew רְאוּבֵן (Re'uven), meaning "behold, a son". In the Bible, Reuben was the firstborn son of Jacob.
Variants include Rúben in European Portuguese; Rubens in Brazilian Portugue ...
. Today the wearing of a pork pie hat retains some of its 1930s and 40s associations. Fashion writer
Glenn O'Brien
Glenn O'Brien (March 2, 1947 – April 7, 2017) was an American writer who focused largely on the subjects of art, music, and fashion. He was featured for many years as "The Style Guy" in ''GQ'' magazine and published a book with that title. He ...
says,
Bryan Cranston
Bryan Lee Cranston (born March 7, 1956) is an American actor and director who is best known for portraying Walter White in the AMC crime drama series ''Breaking Bad'' (2008–2013) and Hal in the Fox sitcom ''Malcolm in the Middle'' (2000–20 ...
's character
Walter White Walter White most often refers to:
* Walter White (''Breaking Bad''), character in the television series ''Breaking Bad''
* Walter Francis White (1893–1955), American leader of the NAACP
Walter White may also refer to:
Fictional characters ...
wears a pork pie hat in the AMC series ''
Breaking Bad
''Breaking Bad'' is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. Set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the series follows Walter White (Bryan Cranston), an underpaid, overqualified, and dispirited h ...
'' when he appears as his
alter ego
An alter ego (Latin for "other I", "doppelgänger") means an alternate self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other self, one with a different ...
"Heisenberg", whose persona is associated with the hat. Sony Pictures Television donated "Heisenberg's" hat to the Smithsonian Institution.
xkcd character "Black Hat" is known for wearing a black pork pie hat - a distinguishing visual as xkcd creator
Randall Munroe portrays his characters in typical "stick figure" style.
References
External links
Pork Pie Hat vs. Fedora– Article on key differences in hat styles
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