Fun brief article

[fedoracentric]

Well, I am just as hopeful on a new era for real fedoras, but happy talk doesn't easily sway me. I'd also note that fashion is fleeting and hats could fall right back out of favor next season.

 

[Edward]

I never understand why people keep saying things like this. What proof do we have that 20-somethings who wear stingy brim "ironic" fedoras will go on to like real, larger brimmed hats later on?

No proof at all. I'm sure many of those of us round here much south of 50 weren't born wearing hats, though, nor did we grow up with our parents wearing them as a norm. For us, baseball caps, boonie hats, and whatever were were we started. The utilitarian nature of a hat was what started me - much later on I became intersted in the aesthetic side of it and found "real" fedoras.... I suppose my point simply is that in a culture where kids wear a brimmed hat of whatever sort, nasty as we might think it, it is that much easier for them to make the transition to a traditional fedora, and that much more likely that they will, than if they wear no hats at all. I see considerably more people of my own generation in fedoras and the likes than I do among my parents' peers who grew up in the "hatless" Sixties...

How exactly are all these 20 somethings supposed to be exposed to those better hats once they get tired of wearing those ironic stingies?

Same as many of us did: the web. I'd been on the Lounge here for a good couple of years before I set foot in a "real" hat shop.

Maybe because there has been a noticeable resurgence in the popularity of hats - even if mostly skinny trilbies - after a long period where they had almost completely disappeared. Isn't just trilbies, either. Porkpie hats are quite popular among young British men, nowadays.

Exactly. There's a world of difference between the potential of adopting a different hat style, and going from no hat at all to a £100+ fedora. Most people need a gateway.

 

[fedoracentric]

Exactly. There's a world of difference between the potential of adopting a different hat style, and going from no hat at all to a £100+ fedora. Most people need a gateway.

I find this to be the most important point.

I remember years ago when I first wanted to buy a "real" fedora and when I saw prices of over $150 for all new products, I resorted to used on ebay. Of course, that was when vintage on ebay rarely got over $90!

Still, the point is, we have lots of guys running around in those crappy stingies they paid $20 to $50 for but if the next price point is closer to $200, that is an awful big jump. That is why I was happy to see the Sterkowski hats selling at something lower than $200!.

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/show...owski-hats-opinions-experiences-wanted-please

 

[The Good]

I agree with you on this point. I wear mainly Open Road style hats with a brim over 2 1/2" (most are 2 3/4") and I have received quite a few compliments from younger men wearing the cheap short brimmed hats referred to in the article. Most ask about my hats and often want to look at them. I get the impression if a nice wider brim felt hat had been as easily available to them as the short brimmed, cloth hats they were wearing they probably would have bought it instead.

I think you're right. Quite a few people over the years have complimented my hats, and some have even expressed interest in wanting to wear one. I wear vintage style fedoras (including one actual vintage), an Akubra Snowy River, a modern Open Road hat, and sometimes my straw hat for the summer. If similar hats were available more easily (More online stores, and more physical stores), and at lower prices (enough for the manufacturer and vender to make a profit), then more sales may be experienced. Akubra hats are already on the cheaper end of authentic fur felt hats, but even if they had more of an availability at shops, and cheaper prices, I think they may sell better, due to more people willing to invest in a hat closer to the price of $100, versus one that is $120, $150, or even $170 dollars.

Thinking more about the economics of hats, I think most people in the United States (and many other countries) could afford to buy one or two nice quality hats. People should obviously save enough money for it over time, but it's possible, and not out of the reach of most. The reason why felt hats are still not very popular (or also the flat caps and newsboy caps), could also have to do with how people simply do not put very much thought into hats at all anymore, compared to decades before the 1970s when they were a part of mainstream culture and dress. I do think more people, young and old, are wearing hats now in 2014, than they were around 2009, when I first started wearing felt hats, excluding the cowboy hat I wore between the ages of 8 and 11.

 

[Zombie_61]

...And often even the "stars" (like Johnny Depp, for instance) are only wearing beat up, old things with holes in them as a "statement"...

I don't necessarily agree with the "statement" part of this...uhh, statement. I really like the look of a well-worn "beater" hat, and look forward to the day when my own hats have that appearance. As for Depp, he can surely afford to buy brand new hats if he wants to, so I think he buys and wears "beater" hats simply because he likes them.

 

[The Good]

I think it's OK to wear beaten, worn hats. My western hat is a beater by now, having acquired some stains, and a slightly warped brim. I still wear it. My favorite beater hat seen in a movie, is probably Humphrey Bogart's hat in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, as the opportunist Fred C. Dobbs. The character is a tramp, begging for money at the beginning.

Of course, I think such worn out hats are casual wear.

 

[Andrew B.]

Speaking of cheap straw gambler hats, I just bought Dorfman Pacific one for $10 mail order. It actually looks sort of nice on my 67 year old head. It's also the first straw hat I've tried that fits perfectly on my XL head. It looks cheaper than the photo, but it is a fun hat for me to wear with some Creed Virgin Island Water EDP.

I'd love to get a nice new fedora but disability makes it hard to shop. I took a taxi up to a hat place on Hollywood Blvd and the guy didn't have even one XL hat there. And I got one at Goorin Bros. on Larchmont, but I don't have it anymore.

 

[bowlerman]

Andrew, are you mobile enough to get to Nick Fouquet's shop in Venice Beach? Or Baron Hats in Burbank? They won't be cheap, as they're both primarily custom hatters, but could be worth the trip.

 

[Cyber Lip]

Interesting article on the modern use of Fedoras and Bowlers

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/11/04/the-bowler-hat-is-the-new-fedora lol

 

[Dan Allen]

"Quote Originally Posted by Edward View Post
Exactly. There's a world of difference between the potential of adopting a different hat style, and going from no hat at all to a £100+ fedora. Most people need a gateway."
I don't think it is the cost of the hat that is the problem but rather the "value" the kids today put on the hat. When you see young men today with $30 hats and $200 sneakers they simply have their values on the wrong end.