Whoopee Jughead Hat History
Written by Laura Brown
I don't wear a lot of hats, literally. But, hats are always interesting. Partly because people don't wear them often any more. People who do wear hats, unless they're hiding baldness, do seem more interesting, just because they chose to wear a hat.
I was a kid when the Archie comics were around, long before the Riverdale TV series. But, the Jughead hat began before Archie and his comics. It is often called a whoopee hat.
The style is called a whoopee cap and, believe it or not, it was insanely popular among young people when Jughead made his comic book debut in 1941. Turns out, factory workers used to invert their felt fedoras and chop off the brims so their eye sight wouldn't be restricted while working. When they got new hats, they'd pass their old hat down to their kids and the crude fedora hack actually became trendy among their kids.
Quoted from Seventeen Magazine online.
Most of the whoopee hats I find online are crochet or knit now. An authentic hat would be made from felt, a thicker felt than I could find in craft shops. To make a whoopee hat now you would need to search for a better kind of felt, one that might even be washable a few times (at least) before it fell apart. Finding a better grade of felt would be harder than finding a pattern (if you need one) to make the hat. Instead, you might buy (try a thrift store) a felt hat with a brim you can cut, turn it inside out and wear a real whoopee/ Jughead hat you created yourself. Add your own pins or brooches to it.
Now that you're a hat maker, think of other styles to work on and wear. Like the cloche hat from the 1920's or some Edwardian hats, romantic and elaborate but all made with felt. Maybe fascinators, all the hat trimmings without the hat (sort of). Maybe a more structured top hat with fancy trimmings leftover from those fascinators. Soon you will become a regular milliner/ hat designer and maker.
Here are some patterns I found, for your Mad Hatter inspiration.
