Bring Back the Red-Carpet Baseball Cap
There is a special place in the hallowed halls of fashion history reserved for the red-carpet style of the ’90s and early 2000s. The maximalism of the ’80s had faded, and the cachet of casual dressing had never been higher. Celebrities didn’t have “image architects,” and getting dressed for premieres largely relied on their own instinct. Unfussy blue jeans and flannels rubbed shoulders with louche double-breasted blazers and glossy dress shirts. Those decades were defined by uncalculated fashion moves and a laissez-faire approach (GQ once termed it “bistro vibes”) to red-carpet style that’s rarely seen today.
Of all the style swerves from that era, one in particular stands out as a lost art form: the red-carpet baseball cap.
The beauty of those hats was their range. Back then, stars dressed up or dressed down as the mood struck them. In the 1990s, proto-casual dresser Adam Sandler routinely pulled up to film premieres in a backwards cap, chore coat, and jeans. In 2002, Steven Spielberg showed up to a 20th-anniversary screening of E.T. in a E.T. mesh trucker cap with a sports coat and a V-neck sweater. In 1997, Will Smith went monochrome, matching his minimalist baseball cap to his zip-up jacket and straight-cut trousers, and later that year, Matt Damon paired a wool coat with a coordinated wool cap.
Looking through the archives (and the excellent @nightopenings Instagram account), a few serial hat wearers emerge. In the ’90s, Chevy Chase showed up in everything from a prop police hat from a Dan Aykroyd movie to a statusy souvenir cap from a restaurant in St. Barts. The legendary Buck Henry was loyal to the look, too. Christian Slater—a pro at pairing a good hat with a double-breasted blazer—had a deep bench of sporty headwear, including one touting a Mike Tyson fight at The Mirage. And, of course, there was the era’s megastar, Bruce Willis, a man who pulled off caps with bomber jackets and loafers just as easily as popped polos and blue jeans.
Looking through these images, a theme emerges: The apex of the form was the promotional hat—a kind of self-marketing so earnest and obvious it now feels quaint. Both Willis and Samuel L. Jackson showed up in swagged-out Die Hard promotional hats. (In 1993, Jackson did the same for Menace II Society; that whole decade and beyond, Willis did it for nearly everything from Armageddon to The Sixth Sense.) Danny DeVito wore a Gattaca cap; Hayden Christensen an “Episode III” hat. And then there was Spike Lee, the undisputed monarch of the promo cap, whose relationship with New Era helped reshape the baseball cap entirely. Malcolm X, Mo’ Better Blues, and Girl 6—each got its own signature lid.
Today, the idea of wearing a baseball cap to an A-list premiere feels like a lost art—and given that hyped-up Marty Supreme jackets are now going for four figures on Grailed, the simplicity of a promotional cap feels especially potent. There have been recent flashes: Jonathan Bailey channeling a baseball-capped ’90s-era Spielberg at the Jurassic World Rebirth premiere (a finely executed, if somewhat too on-the-nose, nod to the movie he was promoting), or the late Rob Reiner in a matching Spinal Tap cap and T-shirt last fall. Nevertheless, more modern torchbearers have emerged, including the deeply underrated dresser Lionel Boyce, who has donned covetable Ebbets Field caps on multiple occasions, and Bad Bunny, who regularly pairs brimmed hats (worn both forwards and backwards) with his suits.
The baseball cap, more than almost any other accessory, adds personal texture to an outfit. In old photos, it often looked like stars grabbed whatever hat was closest on their way out the door. Today’s red carpet is a different beast—a far more choreographed environment with higher stakes and higher gloss. Stylists frequently copy-and-paste full runway looks, with nary an accessory off. Back then, the minimal effort of throwing on a personal hat resulted in something singular. It hinted at a life away from the flashbulbs. That spirit now feels like a relic. But relics have a way of resurfacing, and in a fashion world drowning in microtrends, a lived-in baseball cap pulled from one’s own closet has never felt more full of sartorial promise.
