Everybody's crazy about this sharp dressed man!

I know this sweet little video will show up on almost every RA blog, and I do try to be a bit different but ....  I just have to have this video on my blog!  I can't stop watching it!!!

How can I resist?

Richard Armitage Esquire Magazine Photo Shoot / Directed by Blair Getz Mezibov

And now, I must thank Gratiana Lovelace for posting this on her Facebook page as hers was the first post I noticed.  Her link was to another Facebook page which was posted by Fernanda Matias who shared it from RA Bulgaria.  Also RAfandreamer later posted the link to this video on Youtube which was uploaded by Kathleen  Evans.  Great team work, eh?  Go RArmy!

But before I leave... one last lingering look!

Hat's the way

RA in Marie Lloyd

 Don't you think it's time hats were back in fashion?  Perhaps they are, and I just missed the memo.  I don't pretend to be a fashion diva.  In fact, by the time I pick up on a trend it's usually "old hat" (pun intended -- sorry, I can't help myself!). 

When I was a little girl, (back in the day), everyone wore a hat.  Men took them off in church, but women didn't (I couldn't figure that out -- But here is an article on hat ettiquette to explain a few things).  I remember wearing a little white straw hat to church on Easter Sunday.  But sometime in the late 1960s hats all of sudden completely vanished from the fashion scene.  What happened?  I can't help wondering.  Perhaps it was when women started wearing all those wigs.  It's pretty hard to wear a hat over a wig.  I remember my mom had two wigs!  They were slightly different hair colours and styles, but fairly similar to her own hair.  There was nothing wrong with her hair, but wigs were the fashion.  With men, somehow the ball cap became the head covering of choice.  I am heartily sick of ball caps! They are a storage nightmare which creates an endless source of bickering in many households.  Ball caps to men are what shoes are to women!

Anyway, here is just a little tribute to men's hats from when men really looked like men.  

There's no one better to start us off than my favourite children's entertainer Al Simmons!

Where Did you Get that Hat / Al Simmons

I couldn't begin to top this awesome blogpost on men's hats.  So rather than do a pale immitation, just check out this link:
http://artofmanliness.com/2008/03/01/bringing-back-the-hat/ 

This is arguably the most popular men's hat of the first half of the Twentieth century.

RA in a fedora as the haughty Philip Durrant in the

Miss Marple mystery Ordeal By Innocence (2007)

Here's one of my fave Canadian bands from the '70s with a hat-themed song and a positive message:

Hat's Off To the Stranger / Lighthouse

I do like Phil Collins, but I actually didn't know about this song until I came across it recently (probably because it was never released anywhere but the UK).  Looks like Phil has had some "fan issues" of his own.

Wear My Hat / Phil Collins

Here is my favourite hat scene in a movie -- the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair with Pierce Brosnan.  It is such an excellent combination of clever writing, great acting, beautiful art and wonderful music (the song is by Nina Simone)! You can see the thief (who is going after a Monet painting, btw) is a practical joker by dressing in a bowler hat and leaving behind the a copy of  the artist René Magritte's painting of a man in a bowler hat -- The Son of Man.

Here's another great scene from an odd little romantic movie where Johnny Depp is channelling Buster Keaton.

Johnny Depp doing hat tricks in Benny and Joon

I believe that type of hat is called a Pork Pie hat if it has a flat top or a Derby or Bowler if it has a rounded top.  It's hard to tell from this picture which type of hat he is wearing.  But I like his expression!

RA in The Impressionists as Claude Monet

Ah!  Now we can clearly see it is a Bowler hat!

RA as Claude Monet with actor portraying Edouard Manet in a top hat

Speaking of Top Hats ... We mustn't forget dear John Thornton wearing his top hat in North and South!

 
Here  is my little collage of Richard Armitage wearing a selection of working men's hats.

Oops! I forgot this one...

Here he is in Chris Ryan's Strike Back from Sky1.  Not to be confused with Strike Back 2 : Project Dawn from HBO/Cinemax (which was one of the saddest excuses for a sequel I ever had the misfortune of watching.) The promo is the best part of the whole thing.  Do yourself a favour and watch the first one, but skip the sequel.  Richard Armitage was very lucky to get out of his contract in order to be available to go to New Zealand to star in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit as Thorin Oakenshield.

RA as John Porter in the Zimbabwe portion of Strike Back

It almost looks like he's wearing a Tilley hat in this picture. That's the kind of hat I need!

It's not just me who likes to look at pictures of Richard Armitage in a hat...

The Medium is Not Enough blog has an archive of headshots of Richard Armitage (preferably in a hat) called Dick Heads.  They ask for photo contributions and encourage you to add a Haiku as well!

Nat at Richard Armitage Fan Blog once posted a look-alike picture of The Man in the Yellow Hat (from Curious George children's books).

Here is M. Giant's take on what is up with this guy and his pet chimp in a hilarious blog post on Velcrometer.

  

Here's a man in a Panama hat!

RA as William Chaftord in Malice Aforethought (2005).

Not in character, but  looking very fine in real life 

while wearing his own hat.

Richard Armitage sporting a flat cap

This fanvidder was inspired by Richard's cap to create this fun musical slideshow.

You Can Leave Your Hat On / by tuttiatavalo

August 22 is Armitage Day in RA Land!  Fans of Richard Armitage will be joyfully celebrating his 40th birthday.  Calexora at Befuddled Musings put together and published a lovely birthday book with messages from fans all around the word.  If you missed leaving a greeting you can still do so at Richard Armitage Net.

Really Phylly?  Did you really feel the need to put me in this ridiculous headgear?!

Awww Richard!  Lighten up! At least it's not a picture of you in your "birthday suit"!  ;)

We also have plans for a much better hat for Richard to wear soon!

If you are interested in seeing Richard wear a crown... please sign this petition to show your support for the Richard III project. 

Put on a Sweater / Jumper

Let's ogle Harry Kennedy in his stripey sweater!

February 17 is National Sweater Day in Canada and wherever else -- if you'd like to participate.  The idea is to turn down your thermostat by 3 degrees and put on a warm, funky sweater. It's a fun way to show your support for the environment by reducing energy use.  Sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) whose ultimate goal is to build a future where people live in harmony with nature.

 In honour of this day I'd like to take the opportunity to admire some sweater-wearing men. There is even a Facebook page called Stripey Sweaters with some awesome pictures of swoonworthy men in sweaters.

If you are in the British Isles you probably refer to these clothing items as "jumpers".  I thought that was a funny thing to call them until I thought about the word "sweater".  It is rather crude sounding isn't it? After all, until the latter part of the twentieth century women were not even supposed to "sweat".  My mother always said that women don't sweat, they glow! Does that mean we are radioactive?  Perhaps some athletic types might actually perspire but sweat? -- Never! And now here is actual scientific proof confirming my mother's old adage, which goes to show how mother's are always right!  Study: Men better than women at sweating during exercise

Colin Firth in a reindeer jumper (Bridget Jones' Diary)

Jumper ‘sweater’ (19th c.), incidentally, appears to have no etymological connection with jump. It was probably derived from an earlier dialectal jump or jup, which denoted a short coat for men or a sort of woman’s underbodice. This in turn was borrowed from French juppe, a variant of jupe ‘skirt’, whose ultimate source was Arabic jubbah, the name of a sort of loose outer garment. (quote from Word-origins.com )

Martin Freeman as Watson wearing an Aran sweater

I could go into great detail about the different types of sweaters, (of which the Aran is one of my favourites, or the Fair Isle, which was very popular in the 1980s -- I even almost knitted one!), but as time is of the essence I will just say this... Regarding the difference between the words sweater and jumper -- here is what I have gathered in far too much time trolling the net:

Ben Barnes in a hoodie

A sweater is a term which describes many different types of knitted, long sleeved garments, intended to clothe the upperbody. Originally it was made of wool, but nowadays can be made out of many different types of knitted material.( ie. the hockey sweater which used to be wool, and now is also called a jersey.)
A jumper is a type of sweater which could also be called a pullover as it has no front opening so it can only be donned by pulling it over one's head. Fleece sweatshirts are also called jumpers in the UK.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

  

Avalon--This one's for you!

I almost forgot about this fabulous fanvid!

Fuzzy / by immadeofatoms

And now, I must stop -- because my brain is sweating from looking at pictures of  

Richard Armitage in a sweater!

As Phillip Durrant (wearing a cardigan) in Ordeal by Innocence (Richard Armitage Central Gallery)

Yes Ma -- I'm Sweating!

Let me be plaid!

Sorry to go all stereotypical on you, but I can't post about Scotland without mentioning that exceptional piece of a Scotsman's wardrobe referred to as "the kilt". Well, you can't ignore them, they are all over the place.  I, for one am a huge fan of anyone wearing something a little different than the norm. If I were a man I would be bored to tears wearing pants (sorry) trousers all the time!
  Of course we all wonder what might be hidden underneath the kilt.

Any idea to which clan these tartans belong?

Our guide to Edinburgh Castle

Street music

I realize that in North America the terms tartan and plaid are virtually interchangeable, but in the land of the kilt, this is definitely not the case. So in the interest of clarity, here is the actual meaning:
Tartan:  
a design of straight lines, crossing at right angles to give a chequered appearance, esp the distinctive design or designs associated with each Scottish clan. 
Plaid:

1. A rectangular woolen scarf of a tartan pattern worn over the left shoulder by Scottish Highlanders.

2.  a. Cloth with a tartan or checked pattern.

     b. A pattern of this kind.

So a plaid would be a scarf or blanket worn (perhaps with a kilt) in Scotland, but elsewhere plaid simply refers to the chequered design of the fabric.

 Clear as mud? Yeah, I thought so! Moving on....

Hunter plaid

My husband wanted to purchase a kilt (until he realized that the full regalia was over a thousand pounds!).  There seemed to be nothing in between this exorbitant amount and a cheap Halloween costume version.  As we didn't really have time for comparison shopping, a bit of wishful window shopping is all it amounted to. As his mother's maiden name was Hunter we would like to consider this his family tartan.

Ghastly Gaskell plaid

Molly Gibson (played byJustine Waddell) in the BBC's production of Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters. When she is unexpectedly invited to Hamley Hall, she finds her wardrobe is not up to snuff. Her father suggests she should buy a few new store-bought dresses.

'Well, but it seems people consider you as a young woman now, and so I suppose you must run up milliners' bills like the rest of your kind. Not that you are to get anything anywhere that you can't pay for down in ready money. Here's a ten-pound note; go to Miss Rose's, or Miss anybody's, and get what you want at once. The Hamley carriage is to come for you at two, and anything that is not quite ready, can easily be sent by their cart on Saturday, when some of their people always come to market. Nay, don't thank me! I don't want to have the money spent, and I don't want you to go and leave me: I shall miss you, I know; it's only hard necessity that drives me to send you a-visiting, and to throw away ten pounds on your clothes. There, go away; you're a plague, and I mean to leave off loving you as fast as I can.'

'Papa!' holding up her finger as in warning, 'you are getting mysterious again; and though my honourableness is very strong, I won't promise that it shall not yield to my curiosity if you go on hinting at untold secrets.'

'Go away and spend your ten pounds. What did I give it you for but to keep you quiet?'

Miss Rose's ready-made resources and Molly's taste combined, did not arrive at a very great success. She bought a lilac print, because it would wash, and would be cool and pleasant for the mornings; and this Betty could make at home before Saturday. And for high-days and holidays - by which was understood afternoons and Sundays - Miss Rose persuaded her to order a gay-coloured, flimsy plaid silk, which she assured her was quite the latest fashion in London, and which Molly thought would please her father's Scotch blood. But when he saw the scrap which she had brought home as a pattern, he cried out that the plaid belonged to no clan in existence, and that Molly ought to have known this by instinct. It was too late to change it, however, for Miss Rose had promised to cut the dress out as soon as Molly had left her shop. 

Read the novel online here. 

Mall-teasers plaid

Another Gaskell plaid below. Jo Joyner as Fanny Thornton wears this plaid monstrosity to visit Margaret Hale in North and South.

To view this same dress in other productions, click here.

Big bad plaid

While trying to board the Royal Yacht Brittannia (which we were unfortunately  too late to do), we hoofed it through a shopping mall in Leith (Edinburgh's northern port) where I took this picture at a ladies clothing store sporting quite the selection of plaid clothing items. (I couldn't resist the pink deer's head either! LOL)

Now, excuuuuse me while I go off on a bit of a tangent, but I had to include this trailer for comedian 

Steve Martin's homage to Film Noir just for the title alone -- "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid"!

It's a pretty funny movie, (if you like that sort of goofiness -- I DO!) from back in 1982.

Read the reviews at IMDb.com

Now ... here is Canadian comedian Mike Myers wearing a kilt and toasting that inimitable Scottish actor Sean Connery at the American Film Institute awards show.  I couldn't have found a better film clip if I had paid these people! (If you look carefully, you will catch a glimpse of Pierce Brosnan too!)

Thank you loyal readers. If you have read this far you certainly deserve a treat.
So here you are...

Lucas McNorth clad in plaid

Thanks to my dear friend TeeTotallyNot for her wonderful artwork!