At The Hard Times, we’re constantly confronting the existential quandaries that come with aging. Perhaps you, too, have resorted to extreme options in an attempt to recapture your glory days. Maybe you’ve taken a pole dancing or aerial silks class or two, only to realize that group activities give you a bleeding ulcer. If you’ve gotten a high fade and left more on top, inexplicably had a country phase, bought a DMT pen, tried improv and everything beyond or in between, but nothing seems to reinvigorate your soul, we have fantastic news — you can just get a fucking hat!
Not just any hat, mind you. Here’s the code: your new hat must not click with or complement anything you own. Celebrities do it all the time! Take, for example, Pharrell’s famously inexplicable dalliance with that flat-brimmed fedora that seemed specifically designed to sneak honey-baked hams into movie theatres. That hat and vibe should be the ever-fixed star that guides you to your new hat and personality.
Do you work in tech and mostly own leisurewear as a result? Why not slap on a leather, stovepipe hat? You’ll look like Abraham Lincoln just got back from Burning Man, and golly gosh will people take notice!
Own mostly jeans and old band t-shirts? How about a red felt pork pie hat with a feather or two dangling off the side? You’ll convey to the world that you’re aware that both “Breaking Bad” and “The Lumineers” are two things that you know exist!
Never done a day’s manual labor in your entire life and have the soft, pillowy hands of Dutch master painter’s subject? Well, saddle up, pardner, because a distressed cowboy hat with plastic, mass-produced “tribal” jewelry is what’s hot for you.
Do the phrases, “enjoys wine” and “goes out to eat sometimes,” summarize your entire personality? Not anymore, because now you also wear a big ass sunhat, baby! Get some Jackie O sunglasses and hie thee hence to the nearest Chablis tasting!
Anyone can do this. Simply look at what you own, drink in what it conveys to you on an emotional level, and just go as hard and fast as you possibly can in the other direction. And remember, snickering behind your back is just hater-talk for “I’m jealous of that swagger!”
