In New York, where I live, it’s almost like a plague out of a horror movie. Uptown. Downtown. Brooklyn. Queens, presumably. The young men all have it, drawling dead-eyed through Tinder dates as if they don’t even know it’s there. “It” is not seasonal affective disorder, nor a near-fatal addiction to Sweetgreen, though we presumably all have those, too. “It” is something perhaps even scarier: a beanie, crisply cuffed, perched jauntily right on the top of the head (and leaving the ears exposed to the elements).

I’m one of the afflicted. I’d always been a back-of-the-head man come winter, privileging warmth—and a certain late-’90s emo-band vibe—when it came time to cover my head. Last winter, though, as if I’d been invaded by a body-snatcher, I found myself striding out of my apartment with a hat that left my ears dangling, Dumbo-like, in the cold winter breeze.

How did this happen? When did the beanie transition from functional cold-weather accessory to all-weather fit-topper? Who was behind the shift? And what might it say about the state of men’s style?

I put on my dumb, tiny hat and went looking for answers.

Erika Goldring

Warm knit caps have been around for centuries; as happens so often in the history of clothing, the military version of the garment was the one that springboarded into pop culture. That was the “watch cap”—so named because Navy sailors wore them to keep warm while keeping watch overnight. It quickly migrated into civilian fashion: Archival photos of Steve McQueen in a watch cap suggest that the actor appears to have never kept his ears warm, Jack Nicholson’s hat in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest barely grazed the tops of his, and Marvin Gaye inspired a thousand ill-fated red caps. Seventies and ’80s beanies were Technicolor nightmares with pom-poms, and in the ’90s the early extreme-sports boom led to hats that were big, baggy, and reservoir-tipped.

But to my mind, the beanie really came of age as a fashion accessory in the late aughts. In Los Angeles, where I grew up, the beanie is essentially useless 11 months of the year. And yet, over that period, it flourished, particularly as part of an outfit I’ll call the My Friend’s a Promoter Special. You’ve seen it before: heavily distressed skinny jeans; pointy suede Chelsea boots; a very long, very thin T-shirt with a distressingly wide neck opening; and a beanie placed artfully over the crown of the head, covering the ears but almost none of the forehead. Here, the beanie addressed different needs for different guys: man-bun storage, bald-spot coverage, jacket-warmth replacement. As menswear fanatics ditched suits and spread collars for Kanye-approved layering techniques, the beanie rose. And then, just as quickly, it was supplanted. As the fashion world became obsessed with the sport, it began to ape the skate world’s model beanie—and as the beanie became a decorative accessory, not just a functional one, guys had to find a way to wear them inside and in warm weather without overheating. Hence the top-of-the-head look.