Nice Hat

To show that you mean business, it's important to have style. Enter: the nice hat. It may actually have utility -- even conveying special powers -- but more often than not it just looks cool, or even sexy.

A discerning hero/villain just can't be seen without their Nice Hat! Harming the nice hat may be akin to kicking the dog, with disastrous results.

Fedoras are the most common Nice Hat, probably because they inherently invoke 1920s-era Gangsterland and Film Noir we all know and love. Wizards have their own style to worry about. Commissar Cap is also a common enough version of this to have its own sub trope. The crowns of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs (since crowns are always cool) make this Older Than Dirt. In fact, the Cool Crown as Requisite Royal Regalia always overlaps with this trope.

One reason that hats are so common in Action/Adventure films and series is that they can obscure the face of the character so the viewer can't tell when the hero is being played by a stunt double.

Despite the name, this doesn't just cover hats, but most kinds of headgear, as long as it's cool. Particularly memorable hats may end up as part of a Memetic Outfit.

Compare Cool Helmet; Cool Crown; Costume Porn; Coat, Hat, Mask; Fedora of Asskicking; Cool Mask; Pimped-Out Dress; Pimped-Out Cape; and Nice Shoes. Often they make a Useless Accessory, but they sometimes have uses, like making a good Improvised Weapon.

Not to be confused with the Tropes of Hats, where the "hats" are metaphorical.

For advice on using nice hats in your own stories, see Hat Shop.

Examples of Nice Hat are listed on these subpages: