The New York Times recently reported that hats have made a comeback, indeed they are a necessity given hot days and tricky weather thanks to climate change.

Chris McDonald, the owner of Crown Collectives at 452 W. Main St. in Rochester, a clothing store that features hats, agrees with the Times. Perhaps there’s a hat renaissance in Rochester. You read it here first.

“Men are coming in and saying they don’t usually wear hats,” McDonald says, “but they all say the sun is too much for their head. They need something to cover it.”

What do they buy? McDonald says the top three are the ivy cap, followed by the baseball cap and then the bucket hat.

The ivy hat, sometimes called the newsboy cap, is popular because it’s versatile. McDonald notes that the wearer of an ivy cap can add swagger by tilting it left or right or even turning it around.

McDonald doesn’t wear hats often – he tired of them during his seven years of required hat wearing when he was in the U.S. Army – but, when he does don a hat, he wears the ivy cap.

He characterizes the baseball cap as a dad hat, as he remembers older men when he was young working on their baseball caps, pulling them down on their heads, forming a tunnel of sorts by squeezing the brims.

The bucket hats are popular with people who work outside, McDonald says, as the hat covers the neck and face, giving protection from the sun.

The Times quotes Stephen Jones, the “British hat maestro,” as recommending the bucket hat because it has the “informality of the baseball cap but the structure of the fedora.”

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Jones sees the bucket hat as an alternative, not just to the baseball cap, but also to the straw gardening hat, the safari style hat, and the Panama hat, a hat that suggests “urban dandy.”

The cowboy hat or Stetson doesn’t seem to be in Jones’ mix, though it certainly is an alternative for anyone who works on a farm or ranch.

Cowboy hats are a status symbol of sorts. On “Heartland,” the long-running television series set on an Alberta, Canada, horse farm, the real cowboys, men and women, wear Stetsons. The non-cowboys don’t even try.

A quick survey of Rochester notables through the years offers a variety of hat choices. Frederick Douglass looked sharp in a fur hat. Abby Wambach seems to have a vast collection of baseball caps. Muralist Shawn Dunwoody is a man of many hats, including the top hat.

Given my general resistance to change, my bet is that, at least for the summer, I’ll continue to turn to my stash of baseball (aka dad) caps.

The baseball caps all have sentimental value, as they were purchased to commemorate an event I’ve attended or a place I’ve visited or a school I, or someone in my family, has attended.

I rotate about four or so caps at a time. Lately, the lead-off cap has been a University of Minnesota cap. But an Ithaca College cap has moved into the lineup, thanks to my granddaughter Alyssa Memmott, a graduate of that institution.

I have two Buffalo Bills caps for fall wear, both soft, one white, one blue. The blue cap is key to the team’s success.  I tend to wear it to games, and they win when I do. (Most of the time.)

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I’ve retired at least three Peaks Island (Maine) caps, as they were simply worn out, so I may add a fourth this summer. Similarly, my Rochester Red Wings cap needs to be replaced.

Once in a while, I wear an NCPR cap, as it invites the inevitable question: “What does your cap stand for?” Answer: North Country Public Radio.

Given all this headgear, I don’t think the bucket hat is on my bucket list.

But I may try an ivy cap when the weather turns cooler. I could use a little swagger.

Tag: From his home in Geneseo, Livingston County, retired senior editor Jim Memmott, writes Remarkable Rochester, who we were, who we are. He can be reached atjmemmott@gannett.com or write Box 274, Geneseo, NY 14454