Jon Hamm is back on TV playing another rich New York commuter whose life is falling apart. Ten years after Mad Men, Hamm is starring in Apple TV+’s Your Friends & Neighbors as Andrew Cooper, a hedge-fund manager facing a slew of problems: His wife has left him for a retired NBA player, his kids hate him, and he lost his job after sleeping with a young woman at his company. In his desperation for cash and a sense of control, Cooper starts burglarizing his wealthy neighbors. Obviously, this requires a special little outfit.
For the first two episodes, this means that Cooper wears dark jeans, a Loro Piana hoodie, and a Sun Valley baseball cap, a nod to the conference that has been referred to as “summer camp for billionaires.” In the third episode, however, Coop switches it up with a hat that is almost too cool for him: a Criterion Collection baseball cap.
This hat is immediately in contention for one of the best costuming decisions of the year, facing up against Noah Wyle’s hoodie on The Pitt and that giant T-shirt Aimee Lou Wood wore on The White Lotus. In the first few episodes it is made clear that Coop is something of a cinephile. He’s got a couple of Alfred Hitchcock posters in his sad little bachelor McMansion and he loves to watch an old movie alone on his couch while unwinding from a long day of casing joints and sexting Olivia Munn. But it’s his Criterion hat that lets us know this guy is not just serious about his Blu-Ray collection. He has real taste, while his peers only desire more stuff. Like all good costuming choices, it is simple and elegant and relays a lot of information quickly.
“We didn’t want to make it too much of a joke,” costume designer Jacqueline Demeterio told me over Zoom recently. “At one time we were like, ‘Should he have a balaclava?’ We thought about that and it was too hokey.” Instead, Demeterio opted for a more grounded look, like what you or I might wear if we were getting dressed to steal a Patek Phillippe watch from an acquaintance. Apparently this means obscuring Coop’s face not with the kind of mask that comes up when you Google “cartoon burglar,” but with a dark cap bearing the logo of his favorite purveyor of physical media. According to Demeterio, the idea for the hat came from writer and producer (and IRL Criterion buff) Jamie Rosengard. “It spoke to her for him,” Demeterio said.
If you’re feeling inspired and (like me) didn’t know that Criterion made hats, you’re in luck. You can get a similar one to what Coop wears on their website. Yes, it’s $45, but if you are enough of a fan to buy a Criterion hat, I already know you’re frivolous with money. That’s basically two Eric Rohmer box sets. And can you really put a price on letting everyone know that you don’t play about your Letterboxd account?
Criterion Baseball Cap $45 $45 $45 at Criterion Buy
