Article: Top Hat

Top Hat

Introduced during the early 1800s, the top hat became the most common men's hat of the nineteenth century. Worn by men of all classes, for all occasions, at any time of day, the top hat was a narrow-brimmed silk hat with a tall, straight crown and a flat top. Formal, dramatic, and imposing, the top hat represented much of the spirit of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in which middle class and wealthy Europeans focused on elegance and formality in their dress and manners. The century even saw the first rabbit pulled out of a top hat by French magician Louis Conte in 1814.

The top hat had been preceded by other tall-crowned hats, most made of beaver fur felt and ...

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