Today on #NEVERWORNS, I’m talking about why we should love visors, specifically my extendable visor that I’ve dubbed “My Retinol Visor”. Anyways, as always, subscribe, watch the NEVERWORNS channel in which I interview fun fashion people about clothes they haven’t worn, and stay tuned for guests’s drops on neverworns.net…updating soon, promise!
Lucky me, I finally found the biggest, baddest visor—quite literally. At first, it appears as if it is a standard visor but look closely and there are two plastic panels that I can extend from the brim’s sides to make it wider. The piece is hot off the Amazon Prime press for a cool 14-something dollars. On the band, there is a little Shanzhai-bazaar type logo that reads “sport”.
This visor is both tender and robotic. When I wear the hat, I look like Angelina Jolie as Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft but if she was potting tulip bulbs. Maybe a woman of the southwest, like a modern, well-protected Georgia O’Keefe out in the desert but in her apocalyptic Mad Max-era. My friend said I look like “Wachowskis Flying Nun remake”. Ultimately, I look like I’m a UV ray-conscious person going to my shift at the Park Slope food co-op but in the future.
Maybe I am all of the above as I have been looking for sun protection for quite some time. I have been a retinol user but also a prescription-only Tretinoin smearer who coats their face with the paint stripping-style concoction a few times a week. Have you ever run in the morning after freshly marinating your mug all night with the acid slop…5.5 miles across a shadeless bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan, without any head protection? Your face will feel like it’s gone through a meat grinder, even with a gravy-thick slathering of SPF 80. And even if you’re not coating retinols (or Tretinoin, which essentially feels like dermatologist-approved nail polish remover for the face) onto your pretty little visage, you should cover up thanks to an eroding Ozone layer.
A sunhat never did it for me especially with daily runs. I would look like a galloping gardener. A baseball hat is horrible for anyone who wears a high pony. (I look like shit in a founding father’s low bun). Also, if you’re running in a baseball hat, you know that it doesn’t always stay put. The only solution is a vice-squeeze of a visor.
The visor is truly the best headgear for activity. I read on e4hats.com (???) that the hat was invented by “William Bower in London primarily for horseback riding and other active sports like golf.” (Is e4hats.com…telling the truth? Please let me know!) Whether or not I can actually confirm the history of the visor, there’s probably some truth to the claim. In the archival pages of Vogue, the visor is seen mostly in the context of those leisure WASP sports, like tennis and golf. One of the earliest images of a proper visor—sans a crown—in Vogue is in the May 1936 issue in a piece titled “Behavior of Brims” that shows a white stitched linen with a grosgrain ribbon that has the tiniest volcano opening at the head. “Bet on visors, for they’re bound to come into your life along with summer sports clothes,” reads the caption. How luxe. In the ‘70s, visors are perpetually on the crown of every babe serving on the tennis court. Still in the sports world but in the ‘90s, I sweat for volleyball-player-model Gabby Reece playing in all of her sand-strewn glory with her upturned visor, showing off a Nike Swoosh or a…Sobe (!) logo.
Years later in the noughties pop culture context, we saw visors on the likes of NSYNC’s Chris Kirkpatrick or Howie (or AJ?) from The Backstreet Boys who liked them in noxious hues—and Sisqo and Will Smith who flipped the uptight connotations of the sports-with-dresscodes visor and wore them upside down. Now, we’re full circle seeing them on the tennis-court runway of Marine Serre for spring 2023.
As for picks, there’s some great fashion finds. There’s this welderscore visor from Louis Vuitton on 1stDibs that feels like it’s from the set of Contagion. And if you want inspiration to cut up your Louis Vuitton Neverfull, try this Damier monogram print visor! There are a zillion of these Dior one with a clear brim, which I’m not sure are even polarized…useless but chic. And for the luxury lovers out there, there’s also a hot black calfskin option from Tom Ford and a pale straw version from Loro Piana.
But I specifically like my visor with its wide-load brim; that innocent silhouette of a darling Little Bo Beep bonnet but with the techie hit of Terminator. And there are tons of those on Amazon. I found an ominous visor that reminds me of that creeping dude from the poster of Safe. It has flowing panels on the sides and a little button to fasten it in the front…something that will give the facekini a run for its money. There’s also a visor similar to mine but in Easter pastels. Honestly, whatever you choose, I say get this ventilated, protective headgear. And as my friend said, I can end this all by saying: I advise you to get visor.
I Love My Retinol Visor
It is perfect