The three-cornered hat is the ultimate visual shorthand for the American Revolution, yet its story begins with Spanish soldiers in the muddy battlefields of Flanders who pinned up their wide brims so heavy muskets would stop knocking their hats into the dirt. This episode traces how a battlefield hack became one of history’s most widespread fashion items.

We explore beaver felt construction, why people at the time simply called it a cocked hat, how Louis XIV and powdered wig culture carried it through European high society, and how it became the silhouette of the Continental Army. Then we follow its sudden collapse around 1800 and its afterlife in ceremonies, courts, sports stadiums, and even a pink design for Princess Diana.

• Why soldiers folded their brims and tilted the front point over the left eye
• How the French adopted the style during the War of Devolution and Louis XIV made it fashionable
• How the hat framed powdered wigs and tucked under the arm as the chapeau bras
• Why James Monroe was nicknamed the last cocked hat
• Where the tricorn survives today, from the Chelsea pensioners to Spain’s Guardia Civil and Canada’s Supreme Court