There are options: the trilby, the baseball cap, the cloche, the kepi, the newsboy, the porkpie, the pageboy, the bowler, the beret, the Stetson, the fedora, the Milan, the cycling cap, and the fake fur hat.

Such a wide variety of exotic millinery is enough to merit a tidy little trend piece in the paper of record. The New York Times visted such headwear hotspots as Everyman Espresso and the Stumptown at the Ace Hotel to find the ways in which workers abide by the hygiene code that calls for hair-restraining apparati. 

For some, the hat is an extension of the soul.

While a baseball cap would let Nicole Slaven, the owner of Dora, fulfill any legal requirements, she puts on a “mood altering” forest green cloche that she says makes her feel more “polite and refined.”

Adam Schleimer, of Joe, wears a dark blue kepi, a Civil War hat that suits his 19th-century beard; Trevor Dunaway, who works in a Van Leeuwen Artisanal Ice Cream coffee truck, covers his mohawk with a wool newsboy.

So many ways to assert your personal brand, so little time.

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nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234