Top Hat - in The Present

In The Present

Slash has sported a top hat since he was in Guns N' Roses, a look that has become iconic for him. Panic! at the Disco's Brendon Urie is also a frequent wearer of top hats. He has been known to wear them in previous live performances on their Nothing Rhymes with Circus tour and in the music videos, "The Ballad of Mona Lisa" and "I Write Sins Not Tragedies". Top hats have also become ubiquitous among the steampunk subculture, often adorned with goggles and feathers.

The standard top hat is a hard, black silk hat, with fur now often used. The acceptable colours of hats are much as they have traditionally been, with white hats (which are grey), a daytime racing colour, worn at the less formal occasions demanding a top hat, such as Royal Ascot, or with a morning suit. In the U.S. top hats are worn widely in coaching, a driven horse discipline as well as for formal riding to hounds.

The collapsible silk opera hat, or crush hat, always black, is still worn on occasions worn with evening wear as part of white tie, and is still made by a few companies, since the materials, satin or grosgrain silk, are still available. The other alternative hat for eveningwear is the normal hard shell.

The members of the "Inner Circle" of the Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania Groundhog Club wear top hats on February 2 of every year when they perform the Groundhog Day ceremonies with Punxsutawney Phil.