Delon's hat in Le Samourai

[huysmans]

Hello folks, this is my first post here, hopefully you guys can help me out. I searched the site a bit and saw the film mentioned quite a few times, but no specifics about the hat. I will post a few pictures of the hat and post a link to the hat that is closest, but I hope to find one that is even closer. The thing that is hanging me up is the thick band, the color, and the peculiar crown, which is not exactly a teardrop or a diamond. I can't find any images of the crown, so hopefully one of you guys remembers!

and a nearly identical hat from Le Cercle Rouge

This one is not quite right:

http://www.hatsinthebelfry.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=H&Product_Code=0110grey

Neither is this one:

http://www.thefedorastore.com/TheFedoraStore-Signature-Teardrop-Fedora-In-Stock-p/f126.htm

..but I think that one is closer.

Any help?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Feraud]

I recently watched this very cool movie. Alain Delon's fedora did not strike me as particularly rare in style.

What do you mean by double bow? I do not remember noticing two bows on his fedora..

 

[huysmans]

I don't know what I meant! I must have been thinking of one thing and typing another. I am just having trouble finding one with the right pinch, the right crown, the right color, and the right band thickness. I'm very particular.

Edited my original post to remove the nonsense!

 

[Feraud]

I think your best bet is to find something close enough and you can tweak the crown and brim yourself.
Then again Art Fawcett and probably make you that exact hat.

 

[huysmans]

I was hoping to find something RTW, but I am sure I can learn how to tweak something that is close from these forums. I have never tweaked a hat myself, although I would like to learn, because I'd like to make myself a Buster Keaton flat cap some day.

 

[Feraud]

Shaping a hat is extremely easy!
A bit of steam to soften the felt and you can shape the felt to your taste.
A Keaton styled porkpie sounds great.

 

[carldelo]

A possibility

Check the third hat down on the left hand side, it looks pretty close to me:

http://www.vintagesilhouettes.com/client_frameset.htm

This is the man mentioned above who could replicate the hat for you.

 

[Dr Doran]

My French Lucien de Brabant vintage fedora (early 50s?) is pretty close. His looks like it is made of denser felt, though.

Great film. I love those cars he kept stealing.

 

[HarpPlayerGene]

The thing about that front "pinch" is that it isn't pinched. A good felt hat with plyable felt will take this form if one only chooses to put the front/side dents in and doesn't grab the hat by the pinch. It also keeps the hat from looking tapered from the 3/4 front view or looking reverse tapered from the side. A pre-formed hat would need to be blocked this way to begin with, obviously, and then not grabbed in front. That's what I think anyway. I always reverve the right to be wrong on this stuff.

G'luck!

 

[Tomasso]

I was hoping to find something RTW.

The chick on the lower right seems to be sporting a reasonable facsimile. Check out JJ in Manhattan.

 

[deanglen]

Careful viewing of these Youtube samplings from the film will give you brief glimpses on the crown of the hat, so you can pause it at the right moment. Initially, the glimpses I got were a typical hand pressed inner crown, you can see it pretty well after the guy gives him the pistol in the first sampling on the youtube pagewith a slight teardrop effect near the front.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EluXfEaODSw


Hope this helps! Bon jour!



dean

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Looks like a pretty standard hand-shaped "C" crown.

bk

 

[huysmans]

Thanks everybody for helping out a new guy on his first post! Looks like this is a place I am going to stay.

I was searching around and found this:

That is essentially the exact hat, no? Other than the color of course, and maybe the height of the crown towards the back.

 

[huysmans]

The chick on the lower right seems to be sporting a reasonable facsimile. Check out JJ in Manhattan.

the "nostalgia" looks pretty close.

Could the pictures on that website be any worse though? Hard to get a good idea about a hat when the images are that bad. Thanks for the link though!

 

[huysmans]

Careful viewing of these Youtube samplings from the film will give you brief glimpses on the crown of the hat, so you can pause it at the right moment. Initially, the glimpses I got were a typical hand pressed inner crown, you can see it pretty well after the guy gives him the pistol in the first sampling on the youtube pagewith a slight teardrop effect near the front.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EluXfEaODSw


Hope this helps! Bon jour!



dean

Indeed, at 0:31 you get a great shot of the crown.

 

[Feraud]

the "nostalgia" looks pretty close.

Could the pictures on that website be any worse though? Hard to get a good idea about a hat when the images are that bad. Thanks for the link though!

Walk in and see their selection in person.

 

[huysmans]

Walk in and see their selection in person.

Yes, of course, far more dangerous though!

 

[tonyb]

Sometimes a slight variation in a hat's crown height, say, or brim width, or ribbon width, or crown taper (or lack thereof) can make a BIG difference in its overall effect. At this moment I happen to be wearing a 1950s vintage Stetson that's just slightly different from the Le Samourai lid -- it's just about the same color and it is shaped quite similarly, but it's just a tad taller in the crown, and a touch narrower in the ribbon, and maybe the brim is just a small fraction of an inch wider, and it has a Mode Edge. All of those little things add up to a hat that really isn't much like the hat you're aiming for at all. At least not to my eye, anyway. For some people, maybe the two lids would be all but indistinguishable from each other. But then, some people might think this light blue hat is just like the one Harrison Ford wears in the Indiana Jones movies.

You've come to the right place, huysmans. Here you'll learn what to look for, along the vocabulary to more clearly describe it.

 

[huysmans]

Sometimes a slight variation in a hat's crown height, say, or brim width, or ribbon width, or crown taper (or lack thereof) can make a BIG difference in its overall effect. At this moment I happen to be wearing a 1950s vintage Stetson that's just slightly different from the Le Samourai lid -- it's just about the same color and it is shaped quite similarly, but it's just a tad taller in the crown, and a touch narrower in the ribbon, and maybe the brim is just a small fraction of an inch wider, and it has a Mode Edge. All of those little things add up to a hat that really isn't much like the hat you're aiming for at all. At least not to my eye, anyway. For some people, maybe the two lids would be all but indistinguishable from each other. But then, some people might think this light blue hat is just like the one Harrison Ford wears in the Indiana Jones movies.

You've come to the right place, huysmans. Here you'll learn what to look for, along the vocabulary to more clearly describe it.

Right on! Like I said I am rather particular, so you are quite right, all those little things add up to make a hat that is totally different, even though it looks the "same" to most.

 

[Feraud]

Sometimes a slight variation in a hat's crown height, say, or brim width, or ribbon width, or crown taper (or lack thereof) can make a BIG difference in its overall effect. At this moment I happen to be wearing a 1950s vintage Stetson that's just slightly different from the Le Samourai lid -- it's just about the same color and it is shaped quite similarly, but it's just a tad taller in the crown, and a touch narrower in the ribbon, and maybe the brim is just a small fraction of an inch wider, and it has a Mode Edge. All of those little things add up to a hat that really isn't much like the hat you're aiming for at all. At least not to my eye, anyway. For some people, maybe the two lids would be all but indistinguishable from each other. But then, some people might think this light blue hat is just like the one Harrison Ford wears in the Indiana Jones movies.

You've come to the right place, huysmans. Here you'll learn what to look for, along the vocabulary to more clearly describe it.

Add to all this the guy wearing the hat!
When all is said and done and the specs have been worked out there is only one Delon, Bogey, or Cagney.
They created an iconic look and we can only hope to come "close enough" to recreating it with a hat.

I hope I did not complicate the search..