Introduction

[ManofKent]

UK Vintage clothing dealers tend to use vintage for anything that is 20yrs old or more but it's a very loose consensus amongst dealers. Basically it's as valuable a term as 'rare' or 'collectible' are on ebay

 

[Some Random Bloke]

Hi Everyone, another new guy here. I've been lurking for a couple of weeks after stumbling across this fine forum doing some research on hats.

Living in a blazingly hot climate with extreme UV conditions and being bald I consider a hat a necessity, but that doesn't mean I can't wear one with style! I've recently lost some weight and started a new job with a pretty basic uniform but my wife thinks it's hot and that's all made me more aware of how I dress as well, so maybe a bit of a mid-life transformation in process (44 years old).

I recently discovered a hatter in a local weekend market - better range than anything I've been able to find in Perth (if any Perthites can help, I'd love to know a decent hatter in the metro area). I bought a cheapish suede leather hat which is comfortable and I like the style, but the nap is naff so on the hunt to upgrade. My plan is to find a reasonable Panama for summer and fur felt Fedora for the cooler months.

The problem with this forum is already my vision for hats is expanding and I'm a little overwhelmed but the choices! Guess that's part of the fun. Might have to buy more than one Fedora, I suppose!

I don't know how active I'll be because I can't really call myself a hat fanatic or collector, but this is a great forum so I'll probably jump in from time to time.

Alex

 

[Loz Dawes]

new in town

Hi, I'm new in town and would like to say a big 'HELLO' to everyone here.... I've never been a big hat wearer, until I started shaving my dome a few years back, then I started wearing a baseball cap. Now I'm in my fifties, and decided I needed to update my look... so after scouring London, I came across Christy's , and bought myself a wool felt Pork Pie :smile: (will try to post pics soon).... But I must confess that I've been bitten by the bug, and I'm already eyeing a custom....
Love the site, and look forward to being a part of it...
Cheers!! :cheers1:

 

[splintercellsz]

Welcome!!!!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[Greyryder]

Just lurker, here. Mostly signed up to use the search function. But, I'll probably be asking questions, as my search-fu is weak.

Myself? I'm habitually underdressed. But, I started getting sick of baseball caps a while back, and started wearing a fedora about a year ago.

 

[splintercellsz]

Welcome to the lounge, Greyryder! Glad to have you aboard!

 

[Latoso]

Welcome!

 

[Cornshucker77]

Hi, new member

Hi Everyone,

I just became a new member to the Lounge. I have worn caps, and cowboy hats for many of my 54 years. Although I have admired Fedoras for sometime I only recently decided to buy one. So I am here to learn as much as I can and I hope in time I can contribute something worthwhile. I am hoping to find a Fedora of the 1930's style. SO any advise you may have I would greatly appreciate. Thanks.

Cornshucker77

 

[TheDane]

Welcome to The Lounge. Many loungers wear caps and cowboy/western hats, so it's not just about fedoras. You may already have plenty of knowledge to share

Many of us buy our hats on eBay, but we also buy new hats from custom hatters, making hats in vintage style. This (meta-)thread will probably be of interest. It holds links to some of the most interesting threads on TFL.

 

[Cornshucker77]

Thanks Ole for the thread link.

 

[TheDane]

You are more than welcome. There are so many things to say about 30s hats, so read a little, and you can ask more specific questions on the subject

 

[Cornshucker77]

That is a nice hat.

 

[ManofKent]

Welcome to the site Cornshucker77. Defining 30's style is a fun task in itself
Please share your caps and westerns.

 

[Gargs]

Brand new here, found the site yesterday. Between that and looking at, and reading about hats all over the place from ebay to who knows where from 11 am to 1 am, figured I'd join.

My mom used to tell everybody that when I was a little kid (around the time fire was discovered) there was no picture of me without a hat. I found that true looking at some: sea captain hats, The Cisco Kid hat, and those ugly things mom used to make me wear with ear muffs that pulled down, even a plastic fireman's helmet.

Over the last decade I've had a "Hopalong Cassidy" hat made for me and a "Shane" hat. A Borsalino I grabbed off a sale "pile" at Barney's NY during a visit. A woolen Irish Walking Hat and one of those felt "crushers." I also have one of the "Real Deal" hats made of recycled tarp, which is fun and surprisingly good looking. Then there's a bunch of Irish wool caps.

Joining here I made myself the promise that I'd come out of the dark ages and learn to take pictuers and post. (Not today though!) I also gotta say that having spent the last decade or so collecting and writing about knives, it's nice to find something that really grabbed my interest and, at least at this point, won't send me to the poor house!

Now I gotta get back to watching a few up on ebay...and try to figure out how one knows the quality of felt of a VS when looking at one of the Fedoras on line.

Happy to be here because ignorance being bliss, I've got a lot to learn from a good, fun, knowledge-able group!

Steve

 

[Historyteach24]

Welcome gargs and be prepared to spend money on hats you never thought possible lol

 

[ManofKent]

Welcome Steve, but I wouldn't bet on the interest not growing to the point that the poor house beckons

 

[hatguy1]

Welcome, Gargs.

 

[Dr. Lucky]

I've always worn hats, including a few low-end fedoras, but I'm here to find some much nicer hats. My head is generally too big for vintage (7 3/4) so I've mostly been watching the classifieds and starting to look at the work of someone of the talented folks who make customs. I have no doubt I'll find a couple of excellent fedoras in the next few months.

 

[Jonathan Jones]

Hi everyone,

I'm relatively new here, and I just wanted to introduce myself...

I went to a Secret Cinema event in London recently, and if you don't know what that is, basically it's kind of a merging of a play and a movie, where generally you don't know what the film is beforehand. Part of the fun is the whole process leading up to the first showing, whereupon the film is alluded to, either through vague hints, images, videos or phrases. Tickets are expensive, but the events are usually tremendous fun. They give you a dress code and then you show up at the venue at the appointed time, at some hidden away place. Part of the fun of it, is you don't necessarily always know who is just attending and which actors are hired to be "in on it" and are part of the environment. So if you've really dressed the part, you can ham it up with the rest of them if you really want to. Basically they take over a (usually derelict) place and make it over so that it evokes scenes from the film, and staff it with actors, etc. to give you a little playground. Past events have been The Shawshank Redemption, Ghostbusters, The Warriors, Alien, Blade Runner...

But the most recent Secret Cinema event was for Terry Gilliam movie Brazil, which necessitated, of course, buying a hat. As I was new to hats and fedoras, and it being relatively short notice, I picked up a cheap and cheerful Jaxon wool crushable fedora. After the event was long over, I found myself wanting to wear it now and again, but I wanted a "proper" hat to wear...

I probably don't even need to say this, but being a child of the 1980s, there was a certain fedora that loomed large in my mind, but brown has never been my preference. Watching the film again, I noticed that there was a nice Grey hat that appears in a couple of scenes, and that seemed a perfect choice for me. Although there's tons of great advice out there, I think I stumbled across Matt Deckard's excellent guide to hats, first, which confirmed my choice of color.

So after poring over websites, I went to the nearest hatter The Hat Centre in Stamford Hill in London, and bought my first fur felt fedora. Unfortunately, the kindly older gentleman that ran the shop no longer had any stock of the one I was looking for, a "Sporty Felt Hat" in Charcoal Grey.

So I ended up buying a nice wide brimmed fedora with a teardrop crown in a lighter grey. I started wearing it around town, which, and this may sound strange to long time hat aficionados, but even in a progressive big city like London, it took some guts. I have endured, though, and now I don't have any qualms about wearing my hats out and about. Plus, for what it's worth, I'm old enough to have had some hat wearing etiquette passed on to me (either that or just extrapolating from what I've seen in films or TV shows), so I don't wear it incessantly or inappropriately.

As you all know, you can't have just one, so it wasn't long before I started looking for another hat, preferably something closer to that charcoal grey hat I had wanted originally. So I went back to the Hat Centre, and it turned out they did have one like it in black, but it was a tad snug. After some quick, nondestructive adjustment, it became my second "proper" hat.

I wouldn't profess to be any kind of fashion expert, but I am reasonably aware of fashion trends, and it could be my fresh enthusiasm, but I think that hats are poised to make a big comeback very soon. I've seen lots of people wearing fedoras lately so I'm not the only person under a certain age walking around London wearing what I think is a halfway decent hat.

So now I'm looking for my next purchase-- the hats I have have the same band/ribbon color as the hat, which is lovely, but I do like the contrast of a black ribbon with a grey hat (and seems to be a style that was present in lots of classic films). Most of the factory hats I've seen for sale have low crowns, but I love the look of classic high-crowned hats with medium wide ribbons. Gary White's hats in Boardwalk Empire are lovely and I've been envious of more than a few I've seen on that and other shows and films, classic through to more contemporary.

Anyway, sorry for the long intro, bravo to you if you've gotten this far! Thanks for all the information I've gleaned so far.

Cheers,
Jon

 

[Crazy Dave]

Welcome to the Lounge, and kudos for wearing that 80's movie type hat with a name like Jones.