AHC: Keep tricorne hats fashionable and popular for as long as possible.

Maybe keep them fashionable in a way similar to how cowboy hats are still a common sight in public now? Maybe instead of westerns as the classic early movies we have pirate films or Napoleonic flicks that make people in the 1950's dig the tricorn.
 
Or, perhaps some President decides to habitually wear them in public so as to hearken back to the Founding Fathers. His partisans could then take them up as a political statement.
 
Well in that case the whole "Tea Party" thing basically works, since it's made them more popular than they've been in many years, although "fashionable" and "popular" might be debatable.

Note: Pleasepleaseplease don't take my post here as an excuse to get into an inane political argument.
 
Well in that case the whole "Tea Party" thing basically works, since it's made them more popular than they've been in many years, although "fashionable" and "popular" might be debatable.

Note: Pleasepleaseplease don't take my post here as an excuse to get into an inane political argument.
I won't. But I think its only made that hats popular for followers of said party will to broadcast their opinions.
 
Or, perhaps some President decides to habitually wear them in public so as to hearken back to the Founding Fathers. His partisans could then take them up as a political statement.
That's how I plan to do it once I am elected and inaugurated. ;)
 
Fashion is largely a matter of historical accidents and, being before very recent times barely constricted by any form of 'natural selection', almost anything can happen.
For a military origin of the tricorne revival, Sweden resurrected it in the early 20th C.:

SWEDENINF.jpg


Oddly it looks less archaic, obsolete than the bicorne (still worn recently by the Italian Carabinieri and the Spanish Guardia Civil for instance) so... The military beret nowadays almost universal is the Highlander bonnet of the 17th C., after all.
But 20th C. Sweden lacks the military prestige of Napoleonic France and FPW Prussia, the uniforms of which were so widely copied (specially in Latin America). The 'Scottish' beret gained general popularity because it was worn by 'Free' soldiers of many nationalities during the WW2, and chiefly because of its association with elite troops (commandos, paras). So to spread the tricorne would have to be issued to actually fighting, and rather "glorious" units. Nixon gave a very fanciful 'Ruritanian' uniform with a kind of 'AWI light infantry' cap to the White House Police, but such troop hardly qualifies.
By the times of armies of conscription, such military headgear can spread to the civilian population after a war: almost all French veterans of WWI adopted the beret of the Alps troops, hence the now traditional (but outdated) image of the Frenchman with a beret.

Modified tricornes are still part of (actually, were resurrected for) many female military and police uniforms
2009-1009-britain-anne.jpg

Imagine the Duchess of Cambridge (or her sister Pippa) made honorary colonel of the Blues and Royal...


For a civilian origin of a tricorne revival, anything can happen -think of the quasi-hussar costumes of the "70. A series of very popular 'Pirates' movies could do the trick. Otherwise, tricornes are still worn OTL:
- by women in 'traditional' riding hunt dress
DuchesseCheval.jpg

(concurrently with the 'postillon' hat and the jockey / riding competition cap : the 'equestrian helmet', which can easily be 'dressed' in a tricorne).
As I remember both 'Breton' (Britton) round hat and the flat-topped 'postillon' hat knew some favor in the '70 - '80, so why not?

- also as part of the compulsory '18th C.' costume of the cavaleiras and cavaleiros, the practitioners of the Portuguese riding bull-fighting (tourada):
tourada-cavaleiros.jpg

img_2971.jpg

(though I doubt such inspiration would be perceived as 'politically correct' in some circles, the PETA among them).

And tricornes are already quite fashionable among some goth / emo circles:
orientalbrocade.jpg

Just have a very popular singer wearing one.


At an earlier date, ca. 1900? The all-new, 'ultra-modern' dress was the bicycle rider outfit. Have it with a tricorne (for the women, as a reference to the traditional riding habit?).
 
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"Popular singer where one, erm, how about Adam Ant?"
Not popular enough, obviously, and the hat was just a part of a rather... outlandish costume completed with make-up. I suspect this would better work with girls - imagine the next Rhianna regularly wearing a tricorne?

All in all, while very diverse 'accidents' can spark a short lived 'tricorne fad' restricted to a sex AND an age class, the reintroduction of the tricorne as a military *field* 'cap' is the most likely origin of a long lasting revival of the tricorne as a widespread, popular head-dress. Beret was extremely popular among Frenchmen for some 40 years, and nowadays 'military' caps and soft hats are widely worn, and not only by weekend hunters and fishermen. But this would require a very practical hat: could a tricorne be made of cloth, perhaps with some reinforcement allowing to 'switch' to a slouched hat form in case of rain or burning sun?
 
. . . So to spread the tricorne would have to be issued to actually fighting, and rather "glorious" units. . .
So do you have any suggestions on what countries might adopt tricornes for their military, and then become well renowned for their fighting, in an ATL?
 

birdboy2000

Banned
Growing up in a Jewish family, I always associated tricorn hats with that of the biblical Haman, a (probably legendary) Persian vizier who tried to wipe out the Jews, because it's a custom to eat cookies called hamantaschen which look remarkably like tricorn hats. Per wiki, although they represent Haman, they have nothing to do with any ancient Persian hats he wore - theories range from Persian money to Babylonian dice to hats of considerably less antiquity than the reign of Artaxerxes. But because of the popularity of the Tricorn, many people OTL (myself included) have come to that misunderstanding.

Suppose Adolf Hitler did likewise, and wound up lionizing Haman as someone trying to root out the evil Jewish conspiracy or other such nonsense. The tricorn hat becomes a part of the Nazi uniform. Butterfly in a nazi victory (difficult) a surviving Nazi regime (even harder) and tricorn hats are popular in the greater German Reich today, although very few people in the rest of the world would be caught dead wearing one.

(Alternatively, Hitler still loses, but the tricorn, rather than a shaven head, is the fashion choice among neo-nazis today. But that doesn't quite fit the challenge.)
 
Suppose Adolf Hitler did likewise, and wound up lionizing Haman as someone trying to root out the evil Jewish conspiracy or other such nonsense. The tricorn hat becomes a part of the Nazi uniform. Butterfly in a nazi victory (difficult) a surviving Nazi regime (even harder) and tricorn hats are popular in the greater German Reich today, although very few people in the rest of the world would be caught dead wearing one.

(Alternatively, Hitler still loses, but the tricorn, rather than a shaven head, is the fashion choice among neo-nazis today. But that doesn't quite fit the challenge.)
Alternatively, Hitler manages to fight the Soviets without fighting Britain, France, and the US, leading to either the Haman hat being associated with that one regime that stood up to the Communists (if he loses without a chance to indulge in much genocide) or with the leading European country (if he wins and passes a more-or-less stable and/or civilized state on to his successors).
 
I would prefer a Pirates of the Caribbean costuming fashion subculture over steampunk. Please replace top hats with tricornes, posthaste.
 
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