Top hat top hat is a hard, black silk hat, with fur now often used. The acceptable colors of hats are much as they have traditionally been, with "white" hats (which are actually grey), a daytime racing color, worn at the less formal occasions demanding a top hat, such as Royal Ascot, or with a morning suit. In the U.S. top hats are worn widely in coaching, a driven horse discipline as well as for formal riding to hounds. The collapsible silk opera hat, or "crush hat", is still worn on occasions, and black in color if worn with evening wear as
Eugénie hat popular in the 1850s and 1860s, when it was also known as the empress hat. It was characterised by its forward tilt and featured feathers and ribbons. Typically it was made of velvet or felt. Mary Brooks Picken noted that the hat was generally small in its original incarnation, often with the brim turned up on one or both sides, with what were generally ostrich feathers as a trim. It would normally be tilted towards the right. Originally, the hat was worn for horseriding and travelling. The design began in Paris but became known in Britain. It was described in