Sport inspires some dashing haberdashery

The fashionable trend in head coverings for both men and women these days makes it difficult to tell those who play the game from those who merely cheer on the sidelines

Headgear for sportsmen, created principally to protect the wearer in the pursuit of his game, has so much style that it is influencing the designs of the flossiest milliners, making it difficult this season to tell an Adolfo from an Arcaro, a lady's bonnet from a crash helmet. The cap above left, for example, by Thomas Begg, is foam-padded to protect sports car drivers. The ski racer's fiber glass helmet next to it is made by Bell-Toptex. Madcaps, on the other hand, has turned the British deerstalker into a thing of fashion in suede, and Mr. John's leather helmet (worn by Soames Bantry) is to secure the coiffure in an open car. The earflaps are for show on Lilly Daché's version of a rabbit hunter's hat, but the three helmets next to it are far from frivolous. The crash cap, for karters, and the Little League batter's helmet are engineered of fiber glass by Bell-Toptex; prep and college hockey teams must wear a helmet like this one by Cosby of head-cradling polyethylene. The lady's Tyrolean from Saks Fifth Avenue is just as at home in the country studded with field-trial buttons as in town with a Balenciaga suit.

In the picture below, the man's felt (left) from Saks is for horsemen and has a hard inner shell. The corduroy cap by Thér√®se Ahrens is for girls who want to look like baseball players. A leopard fedora and a red leather shooting hat (Soames wears both) are Lilly Daché's and Sally Victor's ways with two sports classics. The brown felt, imported from England by Begg, is for grouse shooters. Most dashing topper of all is also most protective—the Los Angeles Rams' helmet made of thermoplastic by Riddell. Saks created the man's Tyrolean in seal, and Emme puts suede ear-flaps on a Tyrolean for stylish ladies with cold ears. The cap Soames wears was designed by Adolfo, but its twin, the hunt cap by Cavanagh, is the real thing, with a shell built in.

TWO PHOTOS

RICHARD JEFFREY