Hats and head-wear play an important role in romance comics. By studying the trends of the era, and using hats as signifyers we can gain understanding about social norms and the political climate in romance comics.
In other words, let's look at the crazy crap people put on their heads in the Silver Age.
Head wraps were a popular look that seems to have pretty much died out. I like it. It'd be cool to just wrap a towel around your head after you get out of the shower and not have to worry about blow-drying or flat-ironing or curling your hair.
The head wrap diminished in popularity when girls began to discover that having so much warmth around their heads affected their brains, sometimes turning them violent.
The swim cap is another obsolete head piece you'll see a lot of in romance comics.
I understand the practicality of it: you can go for a swim, but still have your hairdo looking fine when you're relaxing on the beach afterward.
But to me, those swim-hats seem to make a girl look like ol' Cabbage Head.
Men's hats are often a subtle indication of their personalities, or their likes and dislikes.
Most pervasive head-piece of the Silver Age? The headband, hands down. But there are distinct differences between the types of headbands, and the way they're worn.
There's the evening headband:
A girl's got to wear a bow to bed, in case Dennis (or Arthur or Tommy) show up in the middle of the night.
The basic headband, worn across the top of the head, is incredibly common, and indicates an average, demure, chaste girl.
But flip that thing down, and wear it across your forehead, and oh boy. That's the way hippies wear headbands, so a girl rocking that style is in for crazy, European sex parties:
And getting caught up in dangerous revolutionary politics:
Wear a headband across your forehead and you'll undoubtedly find yourself in a situation like this:
Lastly, romance comics have lead me to believe that there was some sort of baldness epidemic in the Silver Age because wig ads are everywhere.
Wigs are the hats of yesteryear. I wish I could find a hat with a built in scalp that looks like skin.
But even wigs could lead a good girl down the bad path of political rabble-rousing.
So if you're having trouble following the complex plot of an issue of Teen Age Love, Sweethearts, or Secrets of Young Brides, take a look at head-wear, and that'll clear everything right up.
