When in Doubt, WWDD
What Jane Austen Offers to Men

ELIZABETH GEORGE
Sept 09, 2026

This is going to be a diversion from my usual essay topics: politics, psychopathology, dangerous passions, and human relationships (with dollops of Shakespeare included), but please be warned that you might find yourself among those readers who will find this essay far to frivolous for our time. You also might not only find my choice of subject offensive but also wish to keep it from the eyes of certain of your loved ones, for fear of crushing their spirits. Or perhaps you will, I hope, find my writing herein rather amusing, and, if I may be frank, moments of amusement or joy or pretty much anything pleasurable are all that we in America have to cling to just now. Aside from videos of otters, dogs, and cats, and the advent of football season (Go, Hawks!) there isn’t much else to lift our spirits. Not that this essay will do that, mind you. Instead, I expect it will provoke outrage among certain people whose sartorial taste I am about to question.

Throughout history, fashions have come and gone, haven’t they? Hemlines have risen; hemlines have dropped; hemlines have risen again. Bustles and crinolines were once the rage; now they are not. Corsets once were de rigueur for any woman wishing to be called a lady. For men, lapels have widened and narrowed, have been notched, have been curved. Cravats have evolved into bowties and neckties, and neckties have widened, narrowed, lengthened, shortened, been decorated in a variety of ways, and made from silk, polyester, cotton, wool, viscose, and various other materials. Belts have been narrow. Belts have been wide. Really, the list of fashion alterations over the centuries could go on for pages, especially if one wishes to consider shoes. However, there is one fashion—and I use that word with the broadest possible interpretation applied to it—that needs to be obliterated, in the opinion of this writer.

The one-size-fits-all baseball cap was a clever idea, wasn’t it? One could purchase a variety of such headgear—emblazoned with every possible sort of insignia—without even having to try it on! You could go on a vacation and advertise the location of your holiday with a baseball cap bearing upon it Yosemite or Washington DC or Paris or any other place where an enterprising individual saw a potential to make money. You could demonstrate your allegiance to a university or college with a baseball cap; you could advertise a political party; you could celebrate milestones; you could support your favorite sports team (Go, Hawks! again); you could even purchase a baseball cap with nothing at all advertised upon it. And, once again, you could purchase it anywhere, even online, knowing it would fit because, as I’ve noted, it was one-size-fits-all.

This was all to the good, yes? I think you and I can agree on that. Someone had an idea of an everyman baseball cap, and the idea took off, bringing us to where we are today, which is a place where one has to make a real effort to find a baseball cap that isn’t one-size-fits-all. (N.B. It can be done, however. I just did it myself by visiting that source of virtually everything under the sun: Amazon.com.)

Then someone had another idea about those one-size-fits-all baseball caps, an alteration that could become a fashion statement. Why not wear it backwards? a creative individual queried. Why not wear it with the one-size-fits-all tab along with the gap in the hat that accommodates said tab right in the middle of the forehead! Wowza! A style was born: Legions of men and boys began wearing their one-size-fits-all baseball caps backwards, sometimes with the hat itself (particularly if it’s mesh!) perched on the very top of the head! What could be cooler? What could possibly be more of a fashion statement?

No one, apparently, wished to tell these legions of men and boys the truth. Do not ask me why. Was it fear to state the obvious to them? Did silence on this matter derive from a mistaken belief that these men and boys would figure things out eventually? Was it misplaced sensitivity about their delicate feelings? Was it an assumption that their egos were so fragile that the slightest note of caution or criticism would crush them? Ask me not.

Here is the horrible truth of the matter, and I will speak it—or rather write it—plainly for everyone who is too cautious or afraid to say it. Gentlemen and boys: wearing a one-size-fits-all baseball cap backwards and hence displaying in the middle of your forehead the tab and the gap makes you look…how do I say it gently?…is there a way to spare delicate feelings? No. I shall state it directly. Wearing the cap thusly makes you look like an idiot. It makes you look…how can I put it? It makes you look socially backward. It makes you look…Is there an opposite of classy? Is unclassy a word? Wearing a one-size-fits-all baseball backwards is, in fact, quite akin to wearing your trousers beltless, allowing them to lower in such a way that any part at all of your underwear is showing. It is also akin to (shudder) bending over in such a way that your butt-crack is on display.

Trust me, all. I can hear your outrage. I can feel your simmering need to avenge not only yourself but also your fashion choices by demanding who made me the arbiter of good taste? And of course, no one did. I merely opine.

While you simmer, though, may I ask you to use close your eyes for a moment. Let us draw out of the dark, backward, and abysm of time the image of…say…Cary Grant. (Look him up on your iPhone if you must). Now let us put upon him a one-size-fits-all baseball cap…backwards. Let us do it to Paul Newman (iPhone again). Let’s do it to Fred Astaire as he moves Ginger Rogers adeptly round the dance floor. (TikTok will do). Okay, let’s move forward in time. Let’s put that cap on Jake Gyllenhaal. How about Michael B. Jordan? What about the latest James Bond: Daniel Craig? What about the quintessential James Bond: Sean Connery (or, frankly, anyone else who has played Bond). Let’s skip back in time again and put it on Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch striding into the courtroom. How do those images seem to you? Classy? Sophisticated? Professional? Intelligent? Polished? Accomplished?

Nah. They look like idiots, one and all. Sorry. But I speak a truth that dare not openly declare itself when someone the hat-wearer knows or loves looks upon him with an inward sigh, thinking instead of saying, Would you take off that stupid hat, for God’s sake? Or at least turn it right-way-round?

There are countless fashion faux pas. We all make them. However, for men everywhere there is one simple question they can ask themselves before they don any garment that might identify them as one who is fashion-impaired: What would Darcy do?

Lest you have no idea who Darcy is (poor you), he is the masterful creation of Jane Austen. Lest you have no idea who Jane Austen is (Good God!), she was a late-18th century novelist whose arguably most famous work Pride and Prejudice features Fitzwilliam Darcy as one of its central characters. Educated, urbane, filthy rich, an unforgivable snob (until he is “properly humbled” by Elizabeth Bennet), he is perfectly garbed at all times, and suitably garbed for whatever occasion or circumstance requires him to wear. I assure you, Mr. Darcy would have a rapier pierce his heart before he would wear anything akin to a one-size-fits-all baseball cap backwards. And were there an equivalent to that sartorial horror in the late 18th century…well, bring on the rapier once again.

I would go further when it comes to what Jane Austen and Mr. Darcy can offer a man wishing to be seen as a cut above the canaille. In any situation aside from and going beyond being alone in the bathroom, a man merely has to ask himself a simple question: What would Darcy do? A few examples: Would Darcy use his fingers on his plate to move food onto his fork? Would he butter an entire slice of bread or just the portion he intends to place into his mouth? Would he use a table napkin (paper, linen, cotton, or other) during the meal or would he ignore it? Would he belch loudly and find it amusing to have done so? Would he pass gas in the presence of others and find that as amusing as belching? Would he leave wet towels on the floor for an underling to pick up? Would he use crude language to describe…well, anyone or anything? Really, when you think about it, the opportunities to ask WWDD are endless.

Of course, you will accuse me of being wildly out of step with the times. I do not disagree. I perfectly understand that the day of the gentleman is long since dead. The current head of our government has been dancing on its corpse for years. But I put before you the argument that there is no excuse for bad taste, for gross choices in one’s daily wear, or for behavior that is less than what it ought to be: exceptional. And I would argue that there is no exceptionality at all to displaying a one-size-fits-all tab and gap prominently upon one’s forehead.

Among other things that would be anathema to him, Mr. Darcy would never don such a hat in such a manner. In fact, men, boys and other gentle readers, asking yourself WWDD in every situation will set you on the path to excellence in all things sartorial and otherwise. Rely upon that. And trust me when I say that very few people in this world will be as dependable a role model as will Fitzwilliam Darcy.

For Jane Austen always knew a gentleman when she interacted with one. On that you may rely.

© 2026 Elizabeth George
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104