Bowler hat

See also: Bowler hat (homonymy)

A bowler hat or melon is a rigid Chapeau of felt and curvature.

The melon, accompanied by a neat moustache and a three-piece suit, was between 1890 and 1920 the absolute symbol of respectability, in particular in England. It was also a symbol of social mobility, sought by those which wished to improve their situation. The men leave with the bowler hat, and cover the jacket and the bow tie.

It had been conceived at the origin for the servants and the peasants in order to replace the fedoras which did not resist the rural life. It draws its surname from hatters which popularized it and whose name was bowler is melon in English. Its first name was hat Coke name of the customer who had ordered it, William Coke of Norfolk, as it was the use in the firm to which they belonged. William Coke had ordered a resistant hat for her guard-forester whose traditional fedora did not back the hard activity. He had asked a hat as rigid as a Haut-de-forme but less higher. He tested the solidity of the hat while putting himself upright on the cap and bought the object for 12 shillings.

With the the United States, it is also known under the name of hat Derby .

In France nowadays, the Price of Diane-Hermes with Chantilly is an appointment society man where the men wear bowler hat, gibus and top hat and the women raise the most spectacular cover-chiefs.

In certain countries of Asia (Laos, Vietnam and Kampuchea), the bowler hat is worn by the men at the time of a proposal. It is the symbol of social success and fruitfulness (undoubtedly because of its form).

To the Peru, much of Indian women wear the bowler hat. It would have been adopted after the passage of two English adventurers.

The bowler hat is an important accessory for many characters who show of imagination, humor and absurdity, the whole often in a climate of fantastic or police investigations.

Use of the bowler hat

With the cinema

the character Charlot by Charlie Chaplin with its burlesque side.
unforgettable the Laurel and Hardy which one does not imagine without this invaluable bowler hat
the Commissaire Maigret wears the bowler hat until the part is played by Jean Gabin.
Bonejangles, a skeleton with only one eye, wears a bowler hat in the Funeral Weddings of Tim Burton.
Film the Business Thomas Crown .
Film Clockwork orange .
Film Malpertuis of Harry Kumel.
Film Taxandria of Raoul Served.

In the series of television

John Steed carries it in Bowler hat and leather boots ( The Avengers ).
Hercule Poirot carries it.
In the Brigades of the Tiger it is carried by many characters.

In the cartoons

In the series Shadoks , Gibis are capped with a bowler hat.
In the King and the bird of Grimault, it is the symbol of stupid and limited police officers.

With the circus

At the Clown S like Achilles Zavatta.
the MIME Marcel Marceau wore the bowler hat.

In the cartoon

In Little Nemo in Slumberland , with Flip, the clown, the bowler hat is associated with the madness.
In the albums of Tintin of Hergé, the characters Dupond and Dupont carry it like symbol of their shift.
In the albums Bob and Bobette, the character of Lambique carries it until in 1948.
In the album Astérix at Breton the there is a humorous allusion to the bowler hats worn by the Londoners.
In a series of drawings of Roland Topor it symbolizes the Man in despairing allegorical situations.
In the universe of Julius Corentin Acquefacques of Marc-Antoine Mathieu, it is carried by the civil and religious police officers, and it is the symbol of the disordered state of logic.
It is omnipresent in particular in the work of Fabrice Lebeault in (Horologiom).
In the album the Goddess of Moebius it is also the symbol of an incoherent system.

In painting

the man with the bowler hat of Rene Magritte.
the son of man of Rene Magritte.
the masterpiece of Rene Magritte.
Man with the bowler hat sitting in an armchair of Pablo Picasso.

See too

Hat
List of cover-chiefs alphabetically

Random links: