Ms. Jeannie is perplexed. As of late, there seems to be a lot of hillbilly happening in the contemporary sporting culture. TV is packed with shows about guns, shows about catfish noodling, shows about 800 ways to camouflage your hunt.

Cut-off jean shorts and dirty t-shirts, duck-tapped boots and grungy attitudes are running rampant. All which got Ms. Jeannie wondering…whatever happened to the days of the elegant sportsman?

The Brad Pitt’s In A River Runs Through It

or the Henry Fonda’s of On Golden Pond?

Or the Robert Redford’s in Out of Africa?

The classic styles, the hats, the wool and the tweed, the velvet and the linen? Has refinement gotten lost somewhere down the long and dusty road of men’s sporting clothes?

Let’s take a peek at some examples…

Ms. Jeannie was reminded about an invitation she received recently to a fox hunt in the Pennsylvania countryside.  Never having been before, she was impressed that everyone participating looked like they had just stepped out of a 19th century painting like this one from Henry Thomas Alken’s…

Bright red coats, top hats, tan riding britches. Hound dogs underfoot, horses brushed, braided and polished to a shine. Now this was a spectacle of elegance. There was even a ceremonial pre-hunt cocktail served in silver cups… while on horseback, we might add. It was decandant.  It was old-fashioned. It was magical. Grand animals in a grand setting.  Well done fox hunters for keeping the spirit of the sport alive…

Sport their same look with these items, available on Etsy…

Likewise, the fisherman of yesteryear, seemed to do it right. Wool sweaters, corduroy pants, tweed hats…  check out this 1924 advertisement for fishing tackle. He’s wearing an Oxford style shirt and a belt!

Get this same look with the following items:

Boating never looked more picturesque than in this 1917 ad of a captain and his dog, proving that boating can still be fun even if you are wearing a bow tie!

Next time you are on the water, trying wearing this…

You’ll notice in these examples that all the men pictured are wearing hats. Hats stopped being worn by men around the 1950’s. Some attribute it to JFK and his own vanity.  Apparently he liked his hair and wanted to show it off! Hence no need for a hat. As a trendsetter, others took note and the hat slowly started to fade out of popularity.

This is an interesting article on the history of the fedora…

http://www.ties-necktie.com/blog/wrapper.php?/archives/305-Fedora-Hats-in-Mens-Fashion.html

Ms. Jeannie wants to launch a campaign to help bring the Fedora back!!! How could you resist such handsome ones as these:

Help the cause! If you wear Fedora’s send a picture to Ms. Jeannie and she’ll post it on the blog.