It was born in the 20th century as an accessory that protected fishermen and sailors on the Irish coast from intense rains and, many years later, in the 1990s it was a trend. Its design did not hide complications: a rounded hat with a short brim and inner lining that protects from any adverse weather, whether cold or hot.
The fisherman’s hat, popularly called a bucket hat, was also worn by farmers to protect themselves from long hours of exposure to the sun. The United States introduced it for all soldiers going to Vietnam, which ended up giving the garment its iconic status in the sixties. They were made of olive green cotton and designed to be able to be folded and put in your pocket.
In the Australian army they called them ‘giggle hats’ – translated into Spanish as ‘caps of laughter’ – since their appearance with the brim down was considered ridiculous. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, the hip hop scene appropriated this cap. In Rapper’s Delight, considered the first song to popularize hip hop in the United States and the rest of the world, one of the band members wears a fisherman’s cap.
With the explosion of streetwear it became even more popular. The Kangol brand, specialized in caps and hats for workers – the one with the kangaroo logo – owed 20% of its turnover to this garment. Entering the 2000s it continued to boom thanks to such important rappers as Jay-Z, who was continually seen wearing this hat.
Limited to the environments of urban cultures, it did not reach the streets until Miuccia Prada rescued it and made it in nylon with the Prada logo in the center, a piece that sold like hotcakes for 350 euros. But the big ‘boom’ of this garment was in 2019, when Prada reinvented this piece again for its spring-summer 2020 collection, with a wide brim and a colored interior.
It was then when the other brands began to replicate it and the ‘influencers’ to combine them with all their ‘outfits’. It became the most timeless ‘bestseller’ accessory: fur for winter, raincoat for autumn, nylon for spring and crochet for summer.
In 2023, this piece began to disappear little by little, and was replaced by the classic cap, which became popular again in brands such as Ralph Lauren or with nods to baseball teams, such as the iconic New York Yankees cap.
