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Breaking Bad, Porkpie

Midwest Boater

One of the Regulars
Messages
196
Location
Michigan
Bryan Cranston makes wearing the porky bad ass again as Walter White in AMC's Breaking Bad.
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Its not just for jazz musicians as Gene Hackman proved in The French Connection.
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KrYpToNiAn1

New in Town
Messages
1
Location
Toronto
Walter White's Heisenberg Pork Pie Hat

Greetings hat enthusiasts!

Help! Does anyone know who made Walter White's "Heisenberg" pork-pie hat for Breaking Bad?

Goorin Bros. claim to produce the "official" hat, but the hat in the show is clearly a custom job, not made by Goorin.

Here is a link to the Goorin site, with a good pic of the hat in question. http://www.goorin.com/breakingbad

Thanks ahead of time for any help tracking down the original hat maker.

Best,

KrYpToNiAn1
 

Banky

One of the Regulars
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227
Location
Milwaukee, WI
Actually, I feel like I remember reading somewhere that Walt's hat was just a wool pork-pie out of Bollman which is exactly what the goorin hat is.
 

casechopper

My Mail is Forwarded Here
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3,783
Location
Northern NJ
It's a perfectly fine hat if you accept the limitations of wool. It fits well for his character in the show and wool wouldn't be a terrible option in a place like Albuquerque. I mentioned it not being high end to respond to the original poster who seemed to think it was a custom made hat. This hat doesn't look custom made to me. I'd look at Bollmans offerings as mentioned by Banky if I were looking for something like this. If you wanted something similar but made from better materials then I'd recommend looking at ebay auctions as there are some very nice fur felt, stingy brim hats that could be formed as pork pies to get the same look as this hat.
I still think it's a nice hat, even if it's wool and even if it isn't high end.
 

Midwest Boater

One of the Regulars
Messages
196
Location
Michigan
i think i saw a shot of the innards of the hat and it was an Adams, I wouldn't mind watching the whole series over again just to find out.
i got a Malory fur porkie and had Optima fit it for me. works better for me than wool up here in Michigan.
 
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Rick Blaine

My Mail is Forwarded Here
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3,958
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Saskatoon, SK CANADA
Expanding my horizons

Just started watching "Breaking Bad" so naturally I had to get a black pork pie

This is a "Crosby slim n trim model with hand felted edges".

I am trying to warm up to narrower brims... this may be just jumping off the end of the dock, tho'! lol
 

jhe888

One of the Regulars
Messages
265
Location
Texas, United States
Walter first wore the hat in the show when he didn't have any money, so it being an inexpensive hat makes sense for the character. It looks good on him.
 

MikeBravo

One Too Many
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1,301
Location
Melbourne, Australia
The character would probably not wear a custom made hat, it might provide clues as to his identity if it had a custom hat makers name on it. He needs to remain generic
 

g.durand

One Too Many
Messages
1,896
Location
Down on the Bayou
Here is something that happened today. It's not quite something I would write about in the "nicest compliment" thread, and it does relate to Walter White's pork pie in a sense. Today I was stuck in traffic on the approach to the Golden Gate Bridge while trying to get out of San Francisco. The beginning of a three day weekend combined with a five-day closure of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge so they can connect roadways and open the new eastern span by Monday night had late afternoon traffic snarled with drivers using alternate routes. I was stopped next to a narrow median. Across the median in the lane going in the opposite direction was a large box truck. I saw the driver holding up his smart phone and pointing it at me. He snapped a picture, saw me looking at him, then said "Hey, you ever see Breaking Bad?" as he drove away. The odd thing is I was wearing this, a VS custom in dove felt:

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Now to me, this hat doesn't come close to looking like Walter White's pork pie. But it speaks volumes about how we hat wearers are perceived. I guess in that truck driver's mind, due to the fact I was wearing shades and a hat, I looked like him.
 

carranty

One of the Regulars
Messages
108
Location
England
I can't count the number of Indy related comments my silverbelly open road has received. I think that Indiana Jones is just so ingrained in the public consciousness that their brains just automatically associates any hat they see with his.

For this reason your post actually makes me very pleased, if ever there was a show that deserved to be popular it's breaking bad (so many well scripted, brilliantly acted shows suffer from low viewing figures). It must be even more watched than I'd realised if people are now mistaking hats for Walter Whites pork pie! :D

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
 

Pinhead

One of the Regulars
Messages
127
Location
Spivey
Walter first wore the hat in the show when he didn't have any money, so it being an inexpensive hat makes sense for the character. It looks good on him.

And the chemo caused his hair to fall out. Maybe just a spur of the moment decision to keep the sun off of his pate, something he may have just picked up at a mall?
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,082
Location
London, UK
I can't count the number of Indy related comments my silverbelly open road has received. I think that Indiana Jones is just so ingrained in the public consciousness that their brains just automatically associates any hat they see with his.

For this reason your post actually makes me very pleased, if ever there was a show that deserved to be popular it's breaking bad (so many well scripted, brilliantly acted shows suffer from low viewing figures). It must be even more watched than I'd realised if people are now mistaking hats for Walter Whites pork pie! :D

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

Many year later than the post I'm commenting on, I know, but...

It is interesting the comments people make. I've rarely had 'Indy', but gangster and cowboy are common with a wide brimmed hat. Most of the time people are trying to be complimentary, and simply referencing whatever their pop culture frame of reference is for a hat these days. I'm just relieved we're past the era of any brown, bomber type jacket being automatically associated with Top Gun. Ugh.
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,082
Location
London, UK
While in Albuquerque a few years ago. We visited The Mans Hat Shop.
Bill Sisk from the store told me that the original hat was a slightly reworked Stetson and that
Bryan Cranston came in and picked it out himself.
As to what hat they may have used later in the series, he did not know.

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On a show that big I'd assume they would have bought plenty of back-ups, but then it was introduced in the first season, and I don't know whether they had a big enough hit on their hands just yet to have that kind of movie budget?
 

ChicagoWayVito

Practically Family
Messages
699
I'm just relieved we're past the era of any brown, bomber type jacket being automatically associated with Top Gun. Ugh.
Don't forget the sequel to Top Gun is on the near horizon. Likely he might be donning the brown bomber jacket again.
 

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