The style can be traced back to the 14th century in Northern England and parts of Southern Italy[citation needed], when it was more likely to be called a "bonnet", which term was replaced by "cap" before about 1700,[1] except in Scotland, where it continues to be referred to as a "bunnet".[2] When English and Irish emigrants went to the United States, they took the flat cap with them.
A 1571 Act of Parliament to stimulate domestic wool consumption and general trade decreed that on Sundays and holidays, all males over 6 years of age, except for the nobility and "persons of degree", were to wear woollen caps on pain of a fine of three farthings (3/4 pence) per day. The Bill was not repealed until 1597, though by this time, the flat cap had become firmly entrenched as a recognised mark of a non-noble subject, such as a burgher, a tradesman or an apprentice. The style gave rise to the Tudor bonnet still used in some styles of academic dress.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, when men predominantly wore some form of headgear, flat caps were commonly worn throughout Britain and Ireland. Versions in finer cloth were also considered to be suitable casual countryside wear for upper-class English men (hence the contemporary alternative name golf cap). Flat caps were worn by fashionable young men in the 1920s. Boys of all classes in the United Kingdom wore flat caps during this period.
In the United States the caps were worn from the 1890s. The cap grew in popularity at the turn of the 20th century and was at the time standard boys' wear. They were worn to school, for casual wear, and with suits. Flat caps were almost always worn with knicker suits in the 1910s and 20s. Both flat caps and knickerbockers declined in popularity during the 1930s.
In the late 20th century and early 21st century British public figures including David Beckham, Guy Ritchie, Harry Styles, Niall Horan, and the Prince of Wales wore the flat cap in some situations.