Earlier today, Miley Cyrus took to Instagram to confirm that she has been pashing off with Aussie pop singer Cody Simpson, sharing a thirsty image of him to her stories.
That’s great news for them, but also for me, because it means I get to dredge up one of my favourite niche pop cultural obsessions – the fact that Cody Simpson has way too many bloody hats.
How many does he have? I honestly have no idea, but I’m pretty sure that between the years of 2014 and 2016, he was never seen in public without some kind of beanie, akubra or trucker hat.
He’s a collector, a connoisseur, a champion of that most maligned men’s fashion accessory. I would say that I take my hat off to the guy, but I’m above those kinds of cheap gags.
Anyway, since we’re all here, let’s take a journey through some of Cody’s greatest hats:
Our journey actually starts all the way back in 2010, when the burgeoning YouTube star relocated to the US and rocked this knit beanie. I’m calling this his blue period, because I can and because there’s literally nobody around to stop me.
We now skip ahead to March 2014, when the rising star wore this jaunty little felt number to the Scooter Braun Projects Sunday Funday Showcase at South By Southwest.
If Scooter was really working for his client, he would have called it the Saturday Haturday Showcase, but look, I’m not here to tell the bloke how to do his job.
Several months later, Simpson attended the 21st Annual Race To Erase MS Gala in Century City, to raise awareness of this very important brown hat with jaunty stitching around the brim.
Here he is attending the Dancing With The Stars wrap party several weeks later. Hey, here’s a bit of a joke for you. What did Cody Simpson say to his hat? I’ll wait here, you go on a head.
In 1965, Bob Dylan shocked the crowd at the Newport Folk Festival by ditching his acoustic guitar and going electric. Legend has it some fans were so furious they tried to cut his cables with an axe.
The impact of this was unmatched until July of 2014, when Simpson ditched his signature hat in favour of an edgy bandanna for a performance in Edinburgh. Music was never the same.
2015 saw the return of Cody Classic, when he wore this Crocodile Dundee-inspired number to Bravefest. It’s truly enough to make you go “that’s not a hat – THIS is a hat.”
I’m probably getting fired when my boss gets in on Monday and asks who the fuck downloaded a million Cody Simpson hat pictures on Getty Images, but I’m already deep in this, so here’s one more.
He actually wore this particular akubra to a lot of events in 2015, so he must have a pretty strong sentimental attachment to it. I mean, it’s a nice-looking hat.
Around this time, he was also hanging out with Justin Bieber a lot and experimenting with trucker caps, as so many of us did at that age.
Here’s a picture of Cody with his then girlfriend Gigi Hadid at Coachella in April 2015. He convinced her to wear this head wrap, and they broke up a month later. Coincidence? You decide.
Simpson’s hat-wearing tapered off significantly from 2016, and more recent photos show him with his tousled blonde hair blowing freely in the breeze at red carpet events.
That’s not to say he has abandoned the hat game completely, but his tastes these days are a touch more refined, as evidenced by these newsboy-style numbers.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Btl62yEBp-e/
We started out with a fresh-faced young Cody Simpson rocking a beanie, so it seems only fitting that we come full circle to an older, wiser one.
Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed coming on this journey with me. We’re done here now. You could even say … hats all, folks.
