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In a photograph a 'Bowler' is more than just a style of hat.
In more than half of bowler hat studio portraits I have seen taken before and after the Great War the man is wearing an overcoat and carrying a walking stick. In the towns and cities of Britain during the first half of the twentieth century, workers in what would now be called the financial sector could be seen travelling to work in similar garb. They adopted the bowler hat and a furled umbrella as an unofficial uniform. We came to identify any man dressed this way as middle class. In group photographs of workmen, the man wearing the bowler is the foreman. If you went on to a construction site the site manager would be wearing a bowler hat. He wore it for that reason. In the office world a 'bowler' said 'I am in middle management, I am not hourly paid; I am on a salary.' In the factory or workplace a bowler said 'I am the person in charge'. | As late as the sixties men could be seen on the buses and tube trains with rolled umbrellas and bowler hats. |
It would be unlikely for a bowler hat to be worn in a photograph after the 1930s | ||
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Workplace dress-code in a modern restaurant says the person not wearing a uniform is the one in charge. |