HISTORY
stayed alive through WWII because of the manufacturing contracts they received for this very shape. It was called a boonie (from ‘boondocks’) and became the hat we saw on our boyfriends’ heads who had gone off to war. Some called it the ‘Daisy Mae’, theoretically named for Al Capp’s bombshell cartoon character from Li’l Abner, although how that reference came about is a study for another day. In Australia, it was a ‘giggle’ hat because it made the wearer look silly. Again, theoretical.
FDR sported his version of the bucket when he went fishing or posed on a yachting sojourn. It lived throughout WWII in the Pacific and can be seen on the head of many a navy squid (that’s
sailor to us civilians) in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific film. Inspired by the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener, it hit Broadway in 1949, then Hollywood in 1958. The marriage of popular culture and military references wins once again to maintain the bucket hat in the public eye as a norm. Coming out of the war, hats sold as souvenirs or to fans of Elvis Presley or Disneyland during the 1950s were invariably in the classical bucket shape. Televisionland plopped the bucket hat on the head of Gilligan in Gilligan’s Island, and on Lt. Col. Blake in the long- running series M*A*S*H*. This is a shape that has maintained,
stayed and welcomed cousins from around the world. The leap from war
front and culture front to fashion has happened because of hats themselves. Worn in the hip-hop culture of the 1980s, the bucket hat became the standard- bearer for a few generations of ravers. As a phenomenon, it became yet again the definitive hat to be worn. With the leap to the music industry, the runway was not far behind. It is said that street inspires haute couture, and thus arrived the Prada, Dior, Gucci and Fendi versions of the bucket as standard gear once again, albeit in a different cultural framework.
Prince Charles
(left) on safari in Kenya, 1971
Bob Denver
in ‘Gilligan's Island’, 1965
American rapper LL Cool J
Elvis Presley souvenir hat, 1956
Prada, S/S 2020 collection
Barbadian singer Rihanna
Dior,
A/W 19/20 collection
48 | the hat magazine #92
All images by Alamy
Photo: Peter Stigter
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