115. Baseball cap

According to a recent article from the BBC baseball caps, as we know them today, originated in 1954. The style is called 59Fifty and remains the official cap for baseball players. It is a mystery how 59Fiftys have become an almost universal must wear item for an array of social subgroups: from urbanites to politicians, from movie directors to cool wannabes. There are two prevailing variations of the baseball cap: the rather tall, boxy version, the one grandpas and farmers wear –envision the John Deere logo; and the snug version made out of a soft crown of six or eight triangular sections of solid-color wool fabric, usually the truly fashionable item. Cap visors are reinforced with an insert of a stiffening material such as buckram or plastic. The functionality of the cap is rather parabolic: while the rim of a hat –a Panama hat, for instance- goes around to protect the full head from the sun, the visor of a cap only protects the face of the wearer: while hats are spatial, caps are eminently frontal, with the visor acting as a pedestal for the message sewn in the front of the cap, be it the emblem of a sports team or a corporate name. This communication aspect of the caps has taken over any other design consideration: caps are what they communicate –just like printed T-shirts are a moving advertisement before they are a garment- and their functionality is minimal. Still cool?

114. Panama hat

The famous New York Times photo of Theodore Roosevelt waving his hat after returning to the United States from a visit to the Panama Canal popularized the use of Panama hats. The misconception is that these hats originated in Panama: they originated in Ecuador’s coastal town of Montecristi. In 1835, a Spanish businessman called Manuel Alfaro started producing the first “Montecristis” or “sombreros de paja toquilla,” later called Panama hats. They were made from toquilla straw hand-split into strands not much thicker than thread, and finely woven. Panama hats are bleached with sulphur or dyed: browns are usually for men's hats, pastels for women's hats, white and cream are universal. After weaving, the hat body is washed, pummeled to provide regularity, and dried. The sides and crown are carefully beaten to even them out. Initial ironing of the brim through a cloth is necessary to remove undulations. At last, before blocking, the raw edges of fibers are trimmed from the brim and back woven to prevent fraying. Hand blocking with steam and iron or with the use of a steam press produces the familiar pattern styles. In 1909 Roosevelt returned to the United States wearing a hat made in Ecuador, but things have change since then: can anyone imagine president Obama returning to the United States wearing an Afghan Karakul after a visit to Afghanistan, or a Pakol after visiting Pakistan? Would the New York Times publish the photo?

113. Makorotlo

The image of Nelson Mandela wearing a mokorotlo (the traditional Basotho hat) and kobo (Bashoto blanket) is timeless: the image of the great man wearing the supreme symbol of Lesotho, the handwoven and ubiquitous straw Basotho hat, speaks of the power of objects to be both functional extensions of our body and collective symbols. Mokorotlo and kobe are important everyday objects in Lesotho because the weather conditions change from blazing sun during the day to chilly breeze after sunset. But the handwoven conical hat trascended its intended function to become a national symbol, so powerful that in the past was part of the blue, white and green Lesotho flag: how powerful and socially accepted must the shape of an object be to become the symbol depicted in the national flag? The form of this object was also directly translated into a mokorotlong -in Masaru, a handicraft center. This translations from object to building, from utilitarian thing to symbolic cultural icon, from hand-woven to team-built, pose the question of the multiple facets of form and the social value of accepted form as a signifier and an element of cohesion and national identity. It is hard to infer that sort of reach from the humble shape of the mokorotlo hat, a shape that is similar in other parts of the world, other cultures that also adapted the cone to create hand-woven hats. But a hand-crafted object becoming a national symbol speaks volumes of the local priorities.