I have a new hat

[nineveh_uk]

A walking holiday type of hat for my forthcoming (September) walking holiday*. After years of not really adequate hats and failing to find anything in the outdoor shops of Edinburgh last week, I watched the BBC's Spingwatch-with-bears on Sunday and realised that one of the hats worn by a presenter would be perfect for me, and now I have this hat in khaki, as far as I can see the last size M in the country. It fits! It is functional! It actually suits me!

This is particular pleasing as the only other hat I'd found so far that looked as if it might suit me was ruled out on account of (a) being in Women's Mountain Fuchsia colour, and (b) having a swastika on it... I don't think it's just me. In those colours the logo really does give that impression, at least enough for me not to want to wear it.

*Switzerland and "eastern Switzerland" i.e. western Austria, because sterling is even worse against the Swiss Franc than the Euro and it's not far from Zurich airport.

Comments

[lilysea]

(b) having a swastika on it... I don't think it's just me. In those colours the logo really does give that impression, at least enough for me not to want to wear it.

Holy shit, it does, too!

I'm not 100% sure if I would have seen it if I hadn't been "primed" to see it, by your commentary,

but your commentary + the hat in red = I can DEFINITELY see it!

[nineveh_uk]

Plenty of people must not see it, since they use it and presumably aren't just selling to neo-Nazis, and I'd assuming that anyone wearing it was just wearing a nice hat, but having seen it I can't un-see it!

[lilliburlero]

Definitely not just you: I've hesitated over Columbia brand products for the same reason. When they have 'Columbia' written beside the logo it usually neutralises it, but on its own...

[nineveh_uk]

I am glad to know I'm not alone! A hat with a nice little fox logo on it feels much better than "will people think I picked a swastika hat?"

In the Department of Irony I've now looked it up and it turns out that Columbia was actually founded by a Jewish family who fled Nazi Germany in 1938, they still run it, and the logo is meant to represent textile weave, which is admittedly what I thought they were aiming for even if that isn't entirely what I saw.

[lilysea]

o.O

!!!!

[lilliburlero]

Oh dear, that is unfortunate. I feel rather a heel for thinking it, somehow.

[nineveh_uk]

Me too!

[white_hart]

I actually prefer Women's Mountain Fuchsia to khaki or beige, but the logo on the hat you've linked does look unfortunately swastika-like in the picture.

[nineveh_uk]

I am happy with a certain amount of Women's Mountain Fuchsia, but it annoys me that it is the default "colour" alternative to the grey/black/khaki option. I ended up with an ivory ski jacket, ridiculously impractical if you're not attempting to be camouflaged, because the alternative was a lurid fluorescent pink.

[white_hart]

Yes, it would definitely be nice to have more variety. (Though given that almost everything in the non-outdoor shops right now is blue, which I am getting very tired of, the fuchsia makes a nice change!)