“There Are Some Men a Hat Won’t Help”

One of my favorite sets of books is a series edited by Jim Heimann in which he assembled an incredible set of decade-specific magazine ads for cars. Simply entitled 50s Cars, 60s Cars, and 70s Cars, they are fascinating compilations that reveal the artistry behind automobile advertising.

I should add that I own only the last two. In the mid-2000s, I bought 70s Cars new at a bookstore, and I had the opportunity to buy the other two at the same time. But my wife and I were in the middle of a cross-country move at the time, and I didn’t want to load myself down with more stuff to deal with. I later tracked down a copy of 60s Cars, but I never got a copy of 50s Cars.

Although they are out of print, copies are still floating around out there on AbeBooks here, here, and here.

Just recently, I discovered the existence of another trio of books edited by Jim Heimann: 50s Fashion, 60s Fashion, and 70s Fashion.

God bless the Internet Archive. It was there that I found electronic copies of each book here, here, and here. They are available to borrow for one hour with a free archive.org account.

Out of the many oddball and delightfully dated ads I came across, I think it was this one by the Hat Corporation of America in 1961 that put the biggest smile on my face:

The copy is definitely worth reading. I wonder if Don Draper would have agreed with the logic that the Hat Corporation of America laid out.

Speaking for myself, I think that, if I were around a few generations earlier, I would have been the cold and indifferent guy in the ad (although without the cigarette). If I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s that a hat would probably have done nothing for my professional success.

And if that wasn’t enough, the fact that I don’t own a suit might have finished the job. But I take heart knowing that I’m not alone. As Walter Hickey wrote just this morning in his Numlock News email on Substack, a new YouGov survey revealed that 51 percent of adults don’t own a suit. The breakdown by gender is a bit more skewed: 33 percent of men and 68 percent of women do not have a suit hanging in their closet. As much of a liability as the omission may be, I’m quite happy to keep my closet free of anything resembling a suit.