1882 Fedora or homburg

[metropd]

It is said that fedoras started in the late 1800's but what I see titled "fedora" in magazines and catalogs are not fedoras but homburgs sometimes with pinches. What time did the homburg and the fedora draw their distinctions?

 

[Boris K]

.

I don't know that there is a definable date. Maybe styles blended during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Some pics from the Were fedoras worn during WW1? thread suggest that is the case.

 

[OldSkoolFrat]

The Homburg was a Continental style. The Fedora was Anglo/American?

Ask Matt D. I am out of my depth.....

 

[carter]

"The homburg is a stiff felt hat with a crease along the length of the crown and no pinches, and has a brim with the edge sharply turned up all the way around. Homburgs are typically made from wool or fur felt and have a grosgrain hatband with an optional feather. The homburg hat was popularized by Edward VII after visiting Germany and bringing back a hat of this style. It is one of the oldest formal style hats and was favored by many politicians and diplomats in the mid-twentieth century."

No matter that it resembles a Homburg, a hat with a flat brim is not a Homburg. It is something other than a Homburg.

 

[metropd]

No matter that it resembles a Homburg, a hat with a flat brim is not a Homburg. It is something other than a Homburg

Yes I know. Hats that have a penicl curl brim with a center dent are called homburgs. The reason I posted this is because it shows in magazines, catolags, and advertisments of that time that hats with a pencil curl brim and center dent are a "fedora".

 

[carter]

Yes I know. Hats that have a penicl curl brim with a center dent are called homburgs. The reason I posted this is because it shows in magazines, catolags, and advertisments of that time that hats with a pencil curl brim and center dent are a "fedora".

Well, it could be different sides of the pond or a shift in colloquial usage. You need a real hat historian.

 

[mingoslim]

I think it has to do with when the ads were printed . . .

Yes I know. Hats that have a penicl curl brim with a center dent are called homburgs. The reason I posted this is because it shows in magazines, catolags, and advertisments of that time that hats with a pencil curl brim and center dent are a "fedora".

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, I do not think that the nomenclature was as precise as it would come to be in the 30s and 40s . . . So if you look at a catalogue from 1900, you see "fedoras" that we would call homburgs.

 

[Pat_H]

Interesting question.

I noted, in the WWI thread, some hats I'd call Fedoras. Many in the advertisements, however, I would not. I've wondered when the Fedora, as we conceive of it, came along also.

One thing the WWI thread seems to suggest is that the style we call a Fedora came into rapid dominance in the 20s.

 

[Pat_H]

Fedora?

http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3g00000/3g03000/3g03300/3g03319r.jpg

Edward Steichen, 1901.

 

[Pat_H]

New Jersey, 1910. Quite an assortment here:

http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/nclc/00000/00069r.jpg