Akubra Colors?

[D.W. Suratt]

I'm sure this has come up before, and I've seen some mention of others trying to compare colors from various sites, but has anyone else noticed that on the Akubra website(and others) they show several hats supposedly in the same colors that look nowhere near the same. This can be very confusing when trying to buy a new hat as one vender may have the hat in a couple of colors, while another has it in different colors. Is it maybe just the lighting when the photos are taking.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

I'm sure this has come up before, and I've seen some mention of others trying to compare colors from various sites, but has anyone else noticed that on the Akubra website(and others) they show several hats supposedly in the same colors that look nowhere near the same. This can be very confusing when trying to buy a new hat as one vender may have the hat in a couple of colors, while another has it in different colors. Is it maybe just the lighting when the photos are taking.

Almost definitely it's different lighting - pictures taken with flash, sunlight, incandescent, halogen or fluorescent lighting of the same hat will give you different hues. It also depends how the viewer's monitor is adjusted and calibrated.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I think the shots on the official Akubra site are a pretty good guide, as they nearly all seem to have been done at the same session with the same lighting. See the pages for each category under:

http://www.akubra.com.au/products.html

As I've observed on another thread, what I'd really like to see is all the different greys together in a single shot. Something like this, but a lot more comprehensive:

http://www.everythingaustralian.com.au/sizechart.asp

BTW, the Stockman I'm wearing in my avatar is Glen Grey!

 

[Donato]

I think the shots on the official Akubra site are a pretty good guide, as they nearly all seem to have been done at the same session with the same lighting. See the pages for each category under:

http://www.akubra.com.au/products.html

As I've observed on another thread, what I'd really like to see is all the different greys together in a single shot. Something like this, but a lot more comprehensive:

http://www.everythingaustralian.com.au/sizechart.asp

BTW, the Stockman I'm wearing in my avatar is Glen Grey!

Agreed, but they do not include all their colors on that chart, e.g., there is no "Moonstone Grey," "Acorn Fawn," "Carbon grey," etc. - all the colors that the Stylemaster comes in. I wish they would include every color choice and identify them clearly since this would obviously make ordering much easier. JM2C.

 

[NonEntity]

Good points above. I agree.

I love Akubras, but I must say, some of the color names they select are not particularly helpful. For example, "Regency Fawn" is a loooong way from fawn, quite dark, basically a medium brown. That color name is further complicated by the fact that they also offer a "Dark Fawn" in another model hat. "Nullarbor Tan" is a wild guess, as I've never been to that western plains region of Australia, but in person the color turns out to be a light brown, considerably darker than anything in the tan range.

Further, the Akubra color problem becomes even more confusing when an online vendor takes its own pics AND changes the name of the color. Makes you think it's a special run in a unique color made just for that vendor. This is so irksome, and there ought to be a law...

This happened just recently with the Riverina (see the "Akubra Riverina 'Safari-ized'" thread). A guy got the hat from one vendor and paid much more for it there because the photo on its website was the perfect color for him and the name of the color reinforced what it looked to be. Then somebody else got a Riverina for only $40 from another vendor with a different name color that appeared totally different on its web site. Turns out the two hats are exactly the same color!

This site is so helpful in myriad ways, and posting pics of and discussing hat colors is but one of them. Given the paucity of retail hatteries these days, we are almost forced to buy sight-unseen online, meaning that one of us has to go first and purchase the hat to actually see what color it is. My thanks to those who take the leap and report back here.

 

[Havana]

I am a devoted fan of Akubras but their color names and selections give me ulcers. To get an accurate idea of what color a particular hat really is, I usually pull every image of that hat from the web that I can find. Then, I compare those images and make a best guess as to what's true. I wish there was a color translator available. Fawn = reddish brown, Carbon grey = bluish grey, loden = brown, Tanbark brown = so dark you'll think it's black.

 

[Edward]

I also get confused by what is availble in what colours.... I didn't know the Stylemaster came in Moonstone - I'd very much like that over the Carbon Grey (makes it that bit different from the Fed.... more easily justifiable expenditure, then. ). Seemed to me looking at HatsDirect.com it wasn't avaialble, tho - was that a special order thing?

 

[Doctor Strange]

HatsDirect seems to offer a VERY limited color selection on many hats. For example, I had no idea that the Bogart came in Carbon Grey - from AustralianGear - until it surfaced here a couple of weeks ago! (I never considered the Bogart before, because I can't wear a black fedora without looking like an ultra-Orthodox Jew... and I'm merely lapsed Reform!)

For that matter, David Morgan also seems to stock very limited color choices.

It seems that you have to look at the sites who also advertise 12-week special orders, like EverythingAustralian or Aussie Bush Hats and Oilskins, to see a wider range of colors.

This is not to say that HatsDirect, for example, doesn't do special orders, we know that they do. But you have to ASK, they don't make a point of stating it explicitly. Hey, maybe that's one of the reasons that they are working up a new site...

 

[Havana]

Strand Hatters in Sydney stocks a lot of hats. They tend to carry some harder to find Akubra colors in stock. They also carry a few models, like the Swing fedora, that I've never seen anywhere else.

http://www.strandhatters.com.au/default.html

 

[D.W. Suratt]

I think the shots on the official Akubra site are a pretty good guide, as they nearly all seem to have been done at the same session with the same lighting. See the pages for each category under:

http://www.akubra.com.au/products.html

As I've observed on another thread, what I'd really like to see is all the different greys together in a single shot. Something like this, but a lot more comprehensive:

http://www.everythingaustralian.com.au/sizechart.asp

BTW, the Stockman I'm wearing in my avatar is Glen Grey!

Most of the one on the Akubra site appear to be ok, but look at the Plainsman, and the Silver Spur. They are both listed as being shown in sandstone fawn. The Plainsman appears to be a very dark color while the Silver Spur Appears to be a very light color

 

[Doctor Strange]

I doubt that the Plainsman photo was shot at the same time: notice that it doesn't have the background tone (shadow on the seamless paper background) that most of the other shots on the site do. (Nor do the Coolbah, Stockman, or Wentworth - they're probably just older stock shots that were resized and dropped in.) I'd only trust the shots done in the same run to accurately show the different color values.

(I grew up in my parents' commercial photo studio back in the 60s/70s. We used to do "silhouettes" of objects with red lithographers tape and painted-on red opaque to get the same effect in ganged-up b/w product shots. Now it's all Photoshop digital techniques, but the principle remains the same.)