Cast your mind back to the brazen robbery of the French crown jewels from the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Numerous photos taken near the Louvre that day showed a mysterious ‘Fedora man’—a shadowy young man wearing the sort of soft-felt hat called a ‘Fedora.’
The photo was splashed over French newspapers, and the question asked: who is this?
And did he have something to do with the robbery?
Well, he has now been identified and, no, he had nothing to do with the brazen theft.
Following all the publicity he revealed himself to be 15-year-old Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux.
The teenage passerby seemed to have stepped out of a 1940s detective movie, with his vest, tie, overcoat, and distinctive broad-brimmed felt hat, worn at a jaunty angle.
It seems it was that hat that caught the media’s attention (entirely pointlessly, as it turned out).
Now, as it happens, I noticed this story because of that hat.
I have a ‘fedora’—a soft felt, broad brimmed, black hat that I bought in German—and I happen to be very fond of it.
I bought on a holiday in the little village of Neuschwanstein, which sits under the famous Neuschwanstein Castle (the so-called ‘Sleeping Beauty’ castle) in Bavaria.
What attracted me to the hat was that its soft felt meant that it could be crushed in a suitcase and look as good as new when it came out again.
But what about the name?
Where does ‘Fedora’ (either with or without the capital letter) come from?
It’s recorded in English from 1883 and is said to come from a dramatic play called Fedora written by Victorien Sardou in 1882.
‘Fedora’ was the name of the leading lady in the play, and she was played on the stage by the legendary French actress Sarah Bernhard.
When the play first became a hit on the Paris stage the name ‘Fedora’ was given to various items of womenswear, including hats.
But the name ‘Fedora’ as we know it today applies only to a man’s hat.
So, how did this switch come about?
It seems that no one knows the answer.
The only explanation that the Oxford English Dictionary offers is that ‘it is possible that the name fedora was applied to the men's hat because of its general fashionable associations.
(Wherever it comes from—it’s a great hat!)
The latest edition of The Spectator Australia is in newsagents now (with the 'drill, baby drill' cartoon on the front page). In the back, in the lifestyle section you'll find my 'Language' column.
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