THE MIDDLE LANE
TGTV script editor Sam Philip discusses pointless objects. Top hat, anyone?
This column prides itself on tackling the serious issues of the day in motoring and beyond. And this month it’s time to bust the taboo and ask: top hats. What were they all about, eh?
It’s been bothering me for a while. The top hat, as in, y’know, the top hat: the lofty cylindrical headpiece favoured by Victorian gents and Willy Wonka and David Beckham. Where did it come from? Why, at some point early in the 19th century, did the public (well, the upper-class male British public at least) decide perching a half-metre-high black tube atop their noggins was a sensible idea? How did something so utterly impractical become required attire?
One popular account holds that the first top hat was created in 1797 by an English milliner called John Hetherington, who, when he wore it out in public for the first time, “caused a riot”, and was arrested and charged with “having appeared on the Public Highway with a tall structure having a shining lustre, and calculated to frighten timid people”. (If that’s arrestable, every BMW X7 driver on the road today should be worried.)
But the tall tale of Mr Hetherington appears be just that. In fact, it seems no one quite knows from where top hats sprang. General consensus is they started of regular size and grew taller, until, at some point, they left the category of ‘sensible headwear’ and entered ‘hazard to light aircraft’ territory.
However they got as big as they got, when you look at an old photo of dozens of Victorian gents stiffly lined up, a stovepipe perched upon each head, you have to wonder: did not one of them ever turn to another, and mutter, sotto voce, “Clarence, do you ever worry we might look a little – how to put this... – completely ridiculous?”
Apparently not. Such sheepish devotion to fashion wouldn’t happen nowadays, of course. Nowadays we’re more rational, more independently minded, more individual than those dutiful Victorians. But then again… the SUV. Over-tall, largely impractical, yet popular to the point of ubiquity: what is the Sports Utility Vehicle if not the top hat of our time?
True, in the grand scheme of physical objects, a Volkswagen T-Roc is slightly more practical than a top hat. It is, after all, tricky to transport an old filing cabinet to the municipal dump in a top hat. But a T-Roc is also less practical than an estate. Or an MPV. Or a proper off-roader. Yet still we Brits keep buying T-Rocs, and Sportages, and Kugas, and all those other millions of SUVs, as unthinkingly as every nineteenth century dandy bought a topper rather than, say, a Stetson or a nice pirate hat.
It’s not our fault. Much as we love to imagine otherwise, we are as much prisoners to fashion as those poor Victorian gents balancing rolled-up yoga mats upon their bonces. No point fighting it. Just be warned that, in decades to come, our current SUV fixation might look a little – how to put this... – completely ridiculous.
“TRUE, A VOLKSWAGEN T-ROC IS SLIGHTLY MORE PRACTICAL THAN A TOP HAT”