Driving Me Hatty
Hola, peeps!
Yesterday I experienced a long-overdue milestone in life, a coming of age event which came much later for me than it does for most Americans:
I bought my first brand new car. At age 41.
You see, my previous car died as I was trying to leave for work. The clutch went out for the third time and my car wouldn’t even pull out of the driveway (at least I didn’t get stranded on the road).
I have never considered buying a new car before; I’ve always owned used cars because I am very frugal and the bang-for-buck ratio of a used car has always been much better. The top 3 priorities in my used car search yesterday were, in order of importance: 1) reliability; 2) good gas mileage; and 3) a manual transmission (which is getting increasingly rare in the U.S., unfortunately). As my search turned up few used car options and what was available cost much more than I expected, I had to start considering a new car for the first time ever.
After a couple of test drives, I chose a 2013 Mazda 3 iSport, which is very nimble on the road, gets great gas mileage, and is highly rated. Yay for me! I’ve also owned a Mazda Protege before and loved it. It’s zoom zoom time here in Texas!
Naturally, my thoughts tonight turned to hats and cars. My first instinct was to blog about hats shaped like cars, but the few results returned by my search were not what I had in mind, nor were they worthy of a blog post!
So then I thought it might be nice to feature some men’s millinery for a change. Haven’t done that in ages!
Let’s talk about…. The Driving Cap
The driving cap originated in 19th Century Britain and Ireland, and was worn by just about every working class man, every day. It was made from cotton, tweed, leather, or wool, and was gradually adopted by the aristocracy who had the caps made from finer materials to wear while playing golf.
The past 30 years, men have grown more interested in driving caps as stylish alternatives to the bland ball cap. I find it refreshing to see men embracing this “new” option in personal style. Several sites out there had great fashion and styling advice so I thought I would share a couple here.
MensStylePro.com
MensStylePro.com had some nice looks which are safe enough for mainstream men who don’t want to stand out too much, but still have some style.
FashionBeans.com
FashionBeans.com was my favorite, though. It had some great styling advice and really sharp looks which I would consider European-inspired, or at least not like anything you would ever see here in Texas. (Of course, it doesn’t help that it’s only cool enough here for 4 months out of the year to dress like these guys.)
But why let the men have all the fun? Maybe I need to fashion myself a driver’s cap to wear with my driving gloves (courtesy of my grandma’s estate) in my sporty new Mazda 3! What is your favorite driving outfit? I would love to hear about it.
Have a great weekend and drive safe!
(p.s. No, I did not get compensated in any way by Mazda to endorse their cars. I’ve just had good experience with them in the past and they’re highly rated here in the U.S.)
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