No Jewish man would have been caught dead wearing a black fedora a century ago. The style was a woman’s hat style popularized by the notorious licentious (even by today’s low standards!) apostate actress Sarah Bernhardt; the very term was the name of one of her characters and feminists of the time adopted the style as a mark of identification. Bernhardt is probably laughing in her grave that orthodox Jews who would have been horrified by her lifestyle and what she represented have adopted her style.
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