Jon Phillips is a motion graphics artist, writer, and director.

Detritus

Several Ways To Remove A Stocking Cap.

Do you, currently, have a stocking cap keeping the top part of your head warm? Maybe it’s getting a little too warm. Maybe the wool is scratching at your ears. Maybe it was a gift from grandma that has a racial slur printed across the front of it, but now grandma has left the room and you can take it off and start apologizing to everyone. Whatever your reason for taking off your stocking cap (or toque), you are now faced with the decision… well… in what manner should I remove it?

I’m happy to be able to provide a starting point for you. This list is not exhaustive, but it is a place for you to start thinking about what type of stocking cap removal is right for you, to see just some of the tricks and techniques used commonly by professional cap-removers. By learning these four stylish, practical, fundamental techniques, you can begin to develop your own style of removing a stocking cap.

With that out of the way, let’s just dive in!

TECHNIQUE ONE: The Nordic Noir

Walking into the parlor of a self-made millionaire who also may have murdered his six blonde daughters? It’s cold outside, so you’re wearing a stocking cap, but you’re a detective of refined tastes and a troubled past, and your cap removal technique should reflect that.

Reach up with one black cashmere-and-leather driving glove, and pinch the cap at its peak. As you pull fluidly down and to the side, quickly depositing the cap into the pocket of your boiled wool peacoat, you turn your head to facilitate its exit. You turn your head, shifting any stray hairs back into place, and begin speaking in suspicion-laden double-entendres about the drapery or whatever.

TECHNIQUE TWO: The Tom Hardy

This technique is best practiced sitting down with your knees very far apart, wearing woolen fingerless gloves, while rocking back and forth. It is likely you will be speaking in some sort of blue-collar accent that doesn’t really exist. Your lips must be pursed. Your shadow must be five o’clock. Your eyes must be pained and always searching for something that isn’t there.

Reach up with one or both hands, grabbing the cap in full fists, before jerking it off your head and likely bringing some of your matted, scraggly hair with it. Cradle it in your hands, pushing around the threadbare fabric with your blunt thumbs, as you wrestle with some decision, which you will choose poorly.

TECHNIQUE THREE: A Bird Takes It

In this one, a bird takes it.

TECHNIQUE FOUR: Maybe Reevaluate Your Relationship

It’s just three days till Christmas, and you’re trying to enjoy a refreshing cup of hot cocoa with your friends Denise and Charlotte on the bench by the library, but your boyfriends are being loud as they roughhouse in the town square. Denise rolls her eyes, “Boys will be boys,” she laments.

Todd, your boyfriend, goes long as Zak throws a can of cranberry sauce like a football. He dives onto the bench, upsetting your hot chocolate and getting it all over your mittens. “Oops, sorry babe,” he chuffs, before playfully stealing your hat. “Hey stop it!” you exclaim. “My hat!”

He throws it away playfully, and you scowl at him. “That was a real mean thing to do, Todd Manderley,” says Charlotte, crossing her arms. “Whatever, she loves it!” he retorts, and goes back to laughing and cavorting with the boys.

The library door opens, and from it emerges Harry Benson, the shy and handsome librarian, who you turned down at the prom 10 years ago. “Excuse me,” he says, timidly, to the boys. “We’re trying to read in here. Would you mind keeping it down?”

“Get lost, Harry!” says Todd, high fiving Zak. Harry notices your hat on the ground, and reaches down to pick it up. He examines it, then walks over and hands it to you. “Here you go, Jennifer,” he says. “I believe this is yours.”

As he hands you the stocking cap, his fingers brush against your mittens, and you can feel your heart pounding loudly in your chest for reasons you don’t understand.

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Feel free to send in your own cap removal techniques! Excited to see what you all come up with.

DetritusJon Phillips2019