Reply To: Why did most Litvish stop wearing Shtreimals?

the chazon ish himself wore a shtreimel when he first immigrated to eretz yisrael. see the famous pictures of him wearing a shtreimel at the hanochas even hapina for the novardok bnei brak yeshiva in 1934. (published in the artscroll book on novardok, which obviously didn’t include the picture of the chazon ish standing for rav kook {who wore a spudik}, but that’s a different topic lol…). however, the chazon ish started the “yishuv hachodosh” which was different then the “yishuv hayashon” of the yerushalmi perushim, and thus did not wear the the golden kaftan, although some pictures of him show him wearing the yeushalmi chalat with its unique rounded collar and one button waist belt. basically, the reason why the “litvish stopped wearing shtreimals” is because they never really started… because the chazon ish prevented it to distinguish between the yishuv hayashan and the yishuv hachodosh, which although both technically “litvish” are radically different in their hashkofah and derech hachaim…
in terms of the chassidim, it was really the chasam soferdike ashkenazishe yidden from hungary who went ironclad with the levush, because of the chasam soifer’s takaanah of “chadash ossur min hatorah”. as chassidus caught on in these communities, they just kept their previous hanhagoha. but shtreimlach were by and large not worn by laypeople until after the holocaust when rav yoel Teitelbaum of satmar ztzkl insisted that every married member of his community wear one, even laypeople. before the war, the majority of poilisher or galicianer yidden did not wear one. shtreimlach, spudiks, kolpiks, were only worn by rabbonim, rebbe’s, or their “bais harav”.