Embroidered, flocked, wearing high (since on the head) the colors or the coat of arms of the team, the cap made its appearance in the prestigious enclosure of the great Anglo-Saxon schools, where sport was practiced and victory was disputed between privileged. On the grass or on the water, an athlete’s headdress as a supporter’s headgear, it is a constant reminder of who and what we are fighting for. Honestly, please, among gentlemen.
More than an ordinary accessory protecting the eyes from the rays of the sun and the salt of sweat, the cap is a gesture in itself. A dividing line between winners and losers, a sign of rallying between players and spectators, it ends up emerging from its inner circle of well-born people and becomes popular thanks to new champions who have come, hard-fought, from other worlds. When the star rappers of the 1990s pose under the flashes with their supporter caps, it is the whole cultural, social and political history of the struggles for equality which, in this form of coronation, is summoned.
However, difficult years followed. Prejudices persist. Like the Borsalino in films about the underworld, the cap is equated with delinquency and criminality. In 2010, the New York police even designate that of the Yankees, whose colossal success is partly due to Jay-Z, as a common point and distinctive sign of the thugs.
If appearance can be a nest of trouble, it is not only due to an object, a garment, an accessory. Moreover, all the attributes of yesterday’s hip-hop fashion, a source of stigma for young people, today set the tone for trends even in the upper echelons of luxury. The cap has imposed itself everywhere, no one can find anything wrong with it. It remains to be distinguished by the way in which it is worn.
Hair tied back like tennis, two-thirds back like an 1980s graffiti artist, low to the eyebrows like rap heavyweights, Angelina Jolie “incognito” style at the supermarket checkout or upside down like a prepubescent rebel? And what to do with her hair: risk it flattening out or take her side of it, let it down, tie it up, forget it’s deserted? To answer all these questions, the cap can in no way be useful. Winners or losers, she doesn’t see the difference. If the message she carries, it is above all that of thinking twice before choosing her style.