What models will be the must-have of the year just beginning? And when is the hat to be put on and taken off? We talked about it with Andrea Toncarelli, owner of the historical Roman hat shop of the same name.

“A hat is essential to complete the outfit. It’s the best way to express your personality.” Christian Dior wrote this in 1954 and sixty-six years later the fashion dogma was written in his “The little dictionary of fashion” continues to be unassailable. The financial data say so, with Italian hat companies immune to the crisis (turnover stable at 161 million in the first nine months of 2019, imports and above all growing exports) and also suggest certain images carved in the year we left behind us: from a screaming Brad Pitt topped by a cup at the Venice Film Festival to Giorgia Meloni who bent over in red exceptionally for the woolen cap from the Capodannesca photo on Instagram, passing through the mayor of Milan Beppe Sala with the Santa Claus hat in the curling player style, the shocking pink cap with which Chiara Ferragni closed the year in Madonna di Campiglio and the fairytale Pinocchio hat re-proposed by Matteo Garrone at the cinema. Without forgetting the “must-have” of summer 2019, the straw hats proposed under the umbrella by real and self-styled influencers.

What’s certain is that equipping your head, even if not at the level of Queen Elizabeth, the second legend with five thousand hats will be an inevitable must in 2020 and there are many proposals for boys and girls, such as the “bucket hat” by Dior, the revisited rain hat (in patent leather, tartan and even with a veil) and the musical hat for techno addicts created by Hanpure: a woolen cap equipped with Bluetooth and microphones with pause volume buttons on the sides. To understand how the market is going and not to make fatal mistakes, AGI turned to Andrea Troncarelli, owner of the historic Roman hat shop of the same name that since 1857 in Via Della Cuccagna, at the entrance of Piazza Navona, has put hats on the heads of Al Gore, Silvio Berlusconi, Mick Jagger and, more recently, Jude Law, soon in Paolo Sorrentino’s New Pope, the new Eva Kant of Manetti Bros Miriam Leone and Milly Carlucci, a Basque fan.

What are the trendy men’s hats for 2020?

There will be a great return to the Forties, with wide brim felt hats and high ribbon, Borsalino style. A separate discussion should be made instead for young people, who apart from the immeasurable woolly pumpkin, are approaching other trendy, unisex, always vintage-style models.

Which ones?

Above all, the “Peaky Blinders” TV series, set after the First World War in Birmingham, is the main character of a gang, the “Peaky Blinders”, which hides a razor blade in the flap of the cup. It’s a hat requested by boys and girls, like the fisherman’s hat just re-launched by Dior in various fabrics.

What will the ladies who don’t play little girls wear instead?

“The fabric cloche, Audrey Hepburn style in ‘Sabrina’, with the ribbon dyed on dyed. The women’s color is cherry red, for men black and brown as always, but there will also be a rediscovery of beige.

Speaking of cinema, which hat and which actor struck you in 2019?

Edward Norton’s “Borsalino” in “Motherless Brooklyn”.

But how much do you have to spend to secure a fancy hat?

“From about 70 euros from the cup to 300 euros from the Borsalino.”

Let’s move on to etiquette, according to the bon ton when you have to put the hat on and when you have to take it off?

“Men have to take the hat off when they enter closed places, from churches to restaurants, and they should lift it up, it was once used like this when they meet a woman walking outdoors. Women, on the other hand, can keep their hats on indoors, they are obliged to take them off only when they sit at the table and at the cinema. In weddings, on the other hand, it is kept on the head even during the reception.