Eulogy for the Trucker Hat
September 2003.

It's hard to say precisely when the trucker hat made its first appearance in the realm of American indie coolness, or to determine its exact origins. One can only imagine that on a seemingly normal spring day approximately a year ago, an anonymous hipster in some urban mecca of disaffected irony—Austin, Williamsburg, take your pick—raided his grandfather's closet and found a foam hat with a mesh backing. The anonymous hipster then scratched his purposely scruffy chin, and thought, "I bet I can get away with wearing this in public."

And so the trucker hat trend was born, and an icon of blue-collar life in rural hamlets with limited fashion options went from chic to shit almost overnight. Celebrity stylists ruthlessly affixed them to the craniums of various clients, like Pharrell, Kelly Osbourne and Christina.

Now they shamefully sit in display windows of assorted international chain stores where any jerk from Ohio can purchase them and pretend that he, too, is an urban warrior with a flair for style and a subtle appreciation of working-class values.

How did this happen? Two words: Ashton Kutcher. Ashton began wearing the trucker hat as Punk'd debuted on MTV and climbed the ratings charts. Having escaped the confines of sitcom oblivion, Ashton's face and his hat were plastered all over every teen bedroom in America. The trucker hat was officially mainstreamed.

By mid-May, the trucker hat had become so ubiquitous that the New York Times ran a style section story declaring the trucker hat phenomenon "over." That its style section, not traditionally the arbiter of cutting-edge fashion, was even aware of its existence indicated that it had probably been "over" six months earlier.

By mid-July, even Ashton had abandoned his signature accessory for something far sexier—freshly botoxed arm candy in the form of 40-year-old Demi Moore. (Can you blame him?)

And where is the anonymous hipster who started it all? Trying on capri pants after getting his rat tail haircut trimmed in some dark corner of indie America, and thinking, "I bet I can get away with wearing this in public."