I need some HAT help!!!!

[Bowtie Birmington]

In like a lion ...

New to this forum, though I've known 'bout it for sometime. Just two fedoras to my name ... one in hand and one on the way ... but what a two they are! Found a seller on Ebay with the two in mint / like new condition for the price to-the-penny of one of Art Fawcett's $385 customs. And they're Optimos! An oxblood 'The Mitchum': high crown 2 3/4" brim, and a custom green with trolly (same crown but slightly wider brim).

 

[rogerstg]

Welcome to TFL. I'm pretty new here too and went from one hat to more than a dozen. None of which are the caliber of yours. I get most on Ebay, but I treat it like the Island of Misfit toys. I pick up forgotten and unappreciated hats and give them some new life.

Again, welcome.

Roger

 

[Fed in a Fedora]

Welcome BB.

What great luck to get such fine hats and find these forums!

Fed

 

[shrek]

Welcome aboard ! Art makes a fine hat. Don't knock it till you try it.

 

[Fulton632]

Hey guys I'm a newbie here. Awesome site. I'm looking for a hat I can't find but I know you have more places to look than I do. Looking for the hat or one close to what Robert Redford wore in the movie the natural. I'll try to attach a photo thanks in advance

 

[jlee562]

Hi Fulton, welcome to the lounge.

There are several ways one might go about answering your query.

If money is no object, one option is to contact a custom hatter such as Art Fawcett, Bob Jessee at Black Sheep Hatworks, John Penman, Mike Miller at Northwest Hats, Tumwater, Optimo, etc.

Tell them what you want, send them that picture, and you will have yourself an excellently crafted hat in a few months time (prices and lead times vary by individual/company)

That hat looks to have a brim in the region of 2 1/8" - 2 1/4", probably a 2" maroon colored ribbon.

To look for a current "off the rack" hat, you might want to check Delmonico.

There's also the option of scouring eBay for a vintage hat that looks the part, although this requires more patience and legwork.

 

[tropicalbob]

Hi, Fulton632. One thing you might want to do before you spend too much cash is to see if you can find a good brick-and-mortar hat shop and spend some time trying on different styles in the mirror. Some styles will suit you and some won't, depending on the shape of your face. Also, expect your tastes to change as your addiction grows.

 

[jlee562]

^^^

Very sound advice. Sometimes I lose the forest for the trees.

 

[tropicalbob]

Ha, when I first got into this I walked into a hat store, found one I thought looked cool, put it on and looked in a mirror: Zippy the Pinhead was looking back at me. In an ideal world, the best way to buy your first hat would be to determine a style you like and that suits you, send some pics of yourself and of the styles you like to Art Fawcett, and let him take it from there. You'd save a bundle.

 

[KingAndrew]

Let's see some pictures, please.

And welcome to the Lounge!

 

[JackieMatra]

Robert Redford, as Roy Hobbes, wears two different hats in the film, "The Natural".

There is the "old" perspiration-stained hat that he wears upon his initial arrival in the major leagues to play for the New York Knights.





Then there is the "new" hat that he wears from the time that he meets Glenn Close, as Iris Gaines, in Chicago, onwards.






The two hats are very similar in shape and dimensions, differing slightly in the color of the hats, and particularly in the color of the ribbon, and also its width, with the first hat being worn with a down-turned back brim, while the second hat usually has an upturned back brim.
I would guess both hats to have approximately 2.5" or marginally even wider brims, which may be made to appear smaller due to the height of both hats, which I would guess to be, at least, 5.75" tall, uncreased.

 

[Frunobulax]

Welcome, BB. Another vote for pictures! Looks like you started out at the top. Like roger, I'm pretty new here and now I'm butting up against something like 30 hats. You'll enjoy the folks here.

 

[JackieMatra]

Roy Hobbes' hats appear to have overwelt brim edges.
Nearly all ready-made hats, nowadays, are made with either raw or bound brim edges.
I know of only three ready-made hats with 5.75"+/= pre-creased crowns, the Akubra Campdraft, the Christys of London Adventurer-Poet, and the Stetson Stetsonian, none of which have overwelt brim edges, and all of which have wider brims, with the Stetsonian having a 6" tall uncreased crown and the smallest brim, at 2.625", so you would either need to find an old vintage hat or have a hat custom-made, in order to duplicate the Roy Hobbes' hats seen in "The Natural".

 

[fashion frank]

Welcome to TFL. I'm pretty new here too and went from one hat to more than a dozen. None of which are the caliber of yours. I get most on Ebay, but I treat it like the Island of Misfit toys. I pick up forgotten and unappreciated hats and give them some new life.

Again, welcome.

Roger

Welcome Roger .

Good to see another Rhode Islander here on the Forum ,feel free to ask any questions ,that's what we are all here for to learn from each other and help each other out.
You wont find a better group of people anywhere.

All the Best,Fashion Frank

 

[rogerstg]

Hi Frank,
Thanks for the welcome, though I'm not the OP. We're probably a stone's throw from each other since I'm in northern Lincoln, the next town over. It's too bad there are no hatters close by.

Roger

 

[fashion frank]

Hi Frank,
Thanks for the welcome, though I'm not the OP. We're probably a stone's throw from each other since I'm in northern Lincoln, the next town over. It's too bad there are no hatters close by.

Roger

As we say in Rhode Island "I gotta guy" Salmagundi's in Boston ,Jesten the owner is an awesome guy and a good friend.

By any chance are you going to be going to the Roaring Twenties lawn Party in August?

http://roaringtwentieslawnparty.blogspot.com/p/about.html

This is something you wont want to miss especially being so close.

All the Best,Fashion Frank

P.S. We should talk some time seeing how we are so close to each other.

 

[JackieMatra]

"Fedoras" from the 1930s generally had much taller crowns than later hats, with very little tapering of the crown , from the bottom, upwards.
Post-WW2 hats usually had lower crowns, hardly ever exceeding 5.5" uncreased, usually with considerable taper.
The hats worn by Roy Hobbes and other characters in "The Natural" are very authentic-looking for the time-period of the film.

 

[hatsRme]

Hi, Fulton632. One thing you might want to do before you spend too much cash is to see if you can find a good brick-and-mortar hat shop and spend some time trying on different styles in the mirror. Some styles will suit you and some won't, depending on the shape of your face. Also, expect your tastes to change as your addiction grows.

This bears repeating. Many times a new hat wearer has an image of someone else in a hat they like, but it simply doesn't suit the newby due to normal variations in the human condition. Have you ever seen the online joke picturing Bogart in his classic fedora, caption: "What you think you look like..." Beside Bogey is a young, less-impactful face of a (I don't want to say goofy looking) guy in a trilby, with the caption, "What you really look like...)

 

[JackieMatra]

Those "online joke" photographs usually show two completely different hats, as you noted, a (1930s) fedora and a (contemporary) trilby. They are not fair comparisons. They are meant to amuse unobservant undistinguishing sophomoric adolescent types.

 

[hatsRme]

Indeed a mean-spirited thing, which is why I hesitated to use the word "goofy."

But the point of picking the wrong hat simply because it was seen in a movie is legit. How many times have we seen someone like a hat they had seen in a movie or on another head that was totally wrong for that person? A lot, unfortunately, (today) partly because of the lack of retail "try-em-on" stores. We don't want to look like a caricature of somebody else, do we?! For my point, the post applies.