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Apparently, the black pinched Borssalino, a familiar sight on the heads of Lubavitcher Chassidim in Crown Heights and worldwide, is the latest fashion craze in town.

NY Times Fashion Section Features Lubavitch Hat

Apparently, the black pinched Borssalino, a familiar sight on the heads of Lubavitcher Chassidim in Crown Heights and worldwide, is the latest fashion craze in town.

From the Fashion & Style section of the New York Times by John Ortved:

Spotting a Borsalino, a black wide-brimmed felt fedora, in the traditionally Jewish section of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is no strange thing. What was surprising was the wearer: Theophilus London, a hip-hop artist from Trinidad. “This one is from the Jewish store,” Mr. London said, motioning toward southern Williamsburg, where the haredi still outnumber the hipsters.

Called either a “black hat” or Borsalino, for the style’s most famous and expensive brand, the simple hat is most commonly associated with ultra-Orthodox non-Hasidic Jews, as well as members of the Chabad-Lubavitch sect, the Hasidic group based in Crown Heights.

But in recent months, the quasi-religious hat has not only popped up on the other side of Williamsburg, where skinny jeans and canvas sneakers still rule, but also in Cole Haan advertisements as a secular fashion accessory.

“I like wearing it because I know it’s genuine,” said Monika Jonevski, a marketing manager at Adidas who first saw one in the window of a hatter on the Lower East Side. “It’s been around in Jewish shops for ages.”

Mr. London didn’t seek his out, either. He was in Williamsburg recording a cover of the Nat King Cole song “Calypso Blues” when he stumbled across Bencraft Hatters, an old-school hattery on Broadway that offers more than 100 styles of felt hats by Borsalino, Stetson, Puertofino and Luigi Baroni. He bought a Puertofino for $120. “I liked the shape of it,” Mr. London said.

Since then, it’s become a part of his urban uniform. He wears it to pick up dinner at his local roti shop, to parties at the Top of the Standard, and even onstage.

This is not the first time that the Borsalino has hopped cultures. “This is an item of clothing that the Jews didn’t design, and didn’t invent, but they took it on and have given it a cachet in their own world,” said Samuel Heilman, a sociology professor at Queens College and the author of “Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry.”

While the tradition of Jews wearing black headgear goes back ages (it was a sign of mourning for the loss of Jerusalem), it wasn’t until the 1960s that ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, as well as Chabad-Lubavitch Jews, began wearing the black fedora to distinguish themselves.

“As the differences between left and right begin to crystallize — when the trauma of survival is behind the Orthodox Jews and they’re re-establishing themselves in North America and Israel — they’re looking for some way to ensure they’re not assimilated, that they don’t disappear,” Professor Heilman said. “It’s not just the black hat. It’s the black suit jacket, the black pants and the white shirt, black shoes and glasses with black frames.”

Contemporary fashion has long drawn on religion for inspiration. “There are so many examples,” said Kenneth Ramaekers, director of Modemuseum Hasselt, a fashion museum in Hasselt, Belgium. Mr. Ramaekers cited Jeanne Lanvin’s and Balenciaga’s adaptation of the cassock in the 1920s and 1960s respectively; Jean Paul Gaultier’s 1993 women’s-wear collection, with its strong Hasidic inspiration; and Walter Van Beirendonck’s burqa look for men in 2008. “Designers have always loved the traditions of religious as well as military uniforms,” said Madeline Weeks, fashion director at GQ magazine.

But that may not explain the black hat’s newfound appeal on the street. “I don’t think the yeshiva boys or the hipsters get their black hats from any kind of religious background,” said Maya Balakirsky Katz, who teaches art history at Touro College and is the author of “The Visual Culture of Chabad.” “It’s all from ‘Mad Men.’ In the ’50s, when the actual Mad Men were wearing Borsalinos, yeshiva students who were living in Manhattan said ‘Oh, this is how to acculturate.’ And that style is back in fashion again.”

The trend is by no means limited to men. Leandra Medine, the author of the style blog The Man Repeller, who was raised as an Orthodox Jew, gave a tongue-in-cheek nod to women wearing the “temple topper” trend last November. “Some ladies find themselves taking these masculine cues to new heights, Crown Heights, if you will,” she wrote.

Added Mordechai Rubinstein, a former yeshiva student who is behind the men’s-wear blog Mister Mort: “Women are pulling these hats off better than men today. It’s so cool to see a woman wearing a Borsalino really well — brim down, crown pinched, tilted to one side, with such confidence.”

That’s not to say Mr. Rubinstein disapproves of the look for men. “A Borsalino is one of those classic pieces of men’s wear that every man should own,” he said. He gives a special acknowledgment to Mr. London. “Theophilus wears the hat, while most men are letting the hat wear them.”

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18 Comments

  • pic not related

    i hope that the picture posted with this article is not related to the hat in the headline. i’m sure most will agree that
    THAT hat is NOT the one associated with every lubavitcher.

    CHI please clarify,

    thanks

  • I-m thinking 1 inch brim with a feather

    Well I take my hat off to the fashion industry. Finally they catch up with real style!

  • Why is this noteworthy?

    Why do we tip our hats and say look we are fashionable the whole rest of the world recognizes it too. So what!!! Why cant we just be happy with who we are without the worlds fashion stamp. Common!!!

  • please

    STOP bringing balebatishkeyt into lubavitch!!!!!!!!!!11
    who cares how a woman looks in a borsalino hat!!!!!!!!!!!!1
    STOP!!

  • Excuse me?!

    The Rebbe came to New York in 1941, and ALL of the Lubavitchers wore it!
    As ssen in MANY old photos that everyone is wearing a gray or white hat. Only a few including the Rebbe wore the Black Hat.
    If it came from this whatever its called “Mad Men”, then the Rebbe definitely would have not wore it.

  • MaidofCH

    Re hat in the pic: nice to know what the Hasidim are wearing this year.

  • Oyfn gonif brent der hittle

    Maya Balalaika or whatever her name is has written a lot of shtus about Chabad. This is just one more piece of her fantasy.

    If indeed unzerer Borsalino becomes a fashion item, Primo and Bencraft will reap the rewards – and maybe even be able to lower prices despite the high Euro.

  • miamiboys

    way to go hatamim mordechai rubenstein..aka mr mort good to see you getting some props in the shchuna news outlets..

  • golda dee

    i don’t know if this is correct but i heard that the reason the rebbe wore a borsolinno when he came to america is cuz thats what was in style

  • NoYechi770InJerusalem

    Actually there are pictures of the Rebbe,ZY”A wearing a gray hat in the years vefore he became Rebbe.