It's about time we define "fedora"

[Mr. Paladin]

Can't we just all get along? My head hurts after reading this thread...

 

[CircuitRider]

(Watch as I make my fedora [dis]appear! )



Rocky the Squirrel,"That trick never works!"

 

[handlebar bart]

Can't we just all get along? My head hurts after reading this thread...

Same here, my head now has reverse taper from reading all this

 

[BanjoMerlin]

A soft felt hat with a fairly low crown creased lengthwise and a brim that can be turned up or down.

A derby doesn't have a creased crown. A homburg brim cannot be turned up or down. Cowboy hats have a fairly high crown.

The C crown, taper and others are indeed lengthwise creases and fit the definition.

But, what do you call those hats that fit all the conditions of a fedora (because they look exactly like a fedora) but are not made of felt?

 

[Lefty]

I can't believe that we can't get further than soft, flanged brim, and center dent (which I'm still not buying, as an open crown fedora is still a fedora to me).

A few questions:

Is brim width an issue? I wouldn't think so, as long as we're dealing within reasonable limits - anything over 1/2", as less seems to be more of a "lip" and less of a brim, though this probably puts too much subjectivity into the mix.

Is crown height an issue? I wouldn't think so.

I can't believe that changing the crease in a fedora would "unmake" it.

The flanged part of the brim is giving me trouble as well. There's got to be a brim break of some degree (so it's not a Gilligan hat), but I'm not sure that the brim needs to be sharply defined. Douglas has a great custom where the brim just seems to flow from the crown - the break is minimal - I think the one below is the one I remember. This is a tough one for me.

So far, I'd propose:
A soft, not lacquered, felt (fur or wool) hat (that's a brim all the way around), with a brim forming some angle with the crown.

That's pretty terrible, but it's all I've got for now.

 

[fluteplayer07]

A soft felted hat (wool or fur) consisting of two main components: a crown which can accept a crease; and an uncurled (different than a snap) brim that fully surrounds the hat, with at least some degree of definition from the crown (brim 'break'). Other features necessary to classify as a fedora: some class of a self or grosgrain ribbon surrounding the base of the crown; a band of material surrounding the interior of the base of the crown, used as a location of contact between the hat and the wearer's head.

 

[Mobile Vulgus]

To me, the brim has to be flat-edged and flexible (snap) to be a fedora. If it has an upturned edge (like a bowler or a Homburg) and is fixed and unchangeable, then it is no longer a fedora. I'd also say that there has to be some sort of crease to the crown. Flat crowns (plugs, etc.) are no longer fedoras. I still throw Triblys out of the mix, too. Their brims are just too short for me to see them as a proper fedora.

Fedora - A soft bodied hat made of fur felt style material with a medium high crown the top of which is dented in any of the accepted shapes (oval, straight crease, diamond bash, etc.). The fedora has a brim measuring between 2 and 4 inches with an outer edge that is not fluted (or curled) but remains flat and can bound with a ribbon trim or left raw edged. The brim is also easily shaped by the wearer, typically called a "snap brim."

 

[kaosharper1]

I think Brad has it that Fedora is a style. I have a Wormser Texan that was shaped with a cattleman's crease when I bought it, and though the 3" brim is a snap brim, it was up all the way around. So it clearly looked like a cowboy hat. By changing the crease to a diamond and snapping down the brim in the front I made it into a Fedora. The basic hat is still the same and it could be turned back into a cowboy hat at any time.

Many of us have changed our Open Roads and other OR clones the same way.

So we can try to break down hats into a few basic characteristics:

1) Material
2) Crown Shape, and
3) Brim Shape.

At least that's my stab at it. For (1) we would have soft felt, lacquered felt, cloth, straw, etc. For (2) we would have a list of things like center crease, c-crowns, diamonds, open, etc. and for (3) we have snap brims, side curls, flat, pencil, etc.

We could then take a stab at things by listing the all the characteristics for 1, 2, and 3 and then mapping combos into styles. For example (and this is just an example), a Fedora could be (1) soft felt, straw, or cloth, (2) center crease, c-crown, diamond, and (3) snap brim, side curled. A homburg would be the same for (1), but be center creased for (2) and pencil curled for (3).

Unfortunately this task would be enormous, and I can't imagine anyone actually doing it. And there are always exceptions or hybrids.

So in the end we probably should just stick with our personal definitions.

 

[1961MJS]

Hi

First of all, I'm no expert at this. If you're going to write a definition of Fedora, you'll also have to right definitions for Pork pie, Trilby, Homburg, Cowboy hat (or break that beast down), Derby, and what ever I missed.

Fair's fair.

I hope this helps as opposed to just stirring the pot with an outboard motor...

 

[Mobile Vulgus]

The problem with "cowboy hat"

The problem with the name "cowboy hat" is that it depends on what era you are talking about you'll get a very different hat!

In the mid 1800s a "cowboy hat" was a large brimmed hat that rarely had any sort of crease in the crown. Then it was called a sugarloaf hat. It differed from a city hat (which at that time was either a derby or a topper) in that it had a much larger brim. It was also different from a farmers hat or what became known as a slouch hat, in that it often had a draw string to hold it on your head as you road a horse (but not always, of course).

But if you were to see a cowboy hat from 1860 it would not seem like a "cowboy hat" to anyone today.

During the civil war the slouch hat was popular. It is almost fedora-like in many ways. But it lacks the somewhat distinctive brim shape of a fedora.

By the 1890s we got the Montana Peak (some think of it as a Drill Instructor's hat) and cowboys started wearing hats we think of as cowboy hats today but there were still a lot of sugarloafs and slouch hats as opposed to what we think of as a cowboy hat.

But at the turn of the century we started getting "cowboy hats" more like we are familiar with today. The tall crowns the "V" shaped brims. By the 1920s the brims really got big as the hats we remember from the early screen cowboys.

Anyway, I'd almost say we'd have as tough a time saying what a "cowboy hat" is as we are saying what a fedora is!

Like someone said earlier, to quote the Supreme Court "we know it when we see it."

 

[RBH]

I have always considered my straw hats to be a fedora.

So did some if not all in 1922.

The whole section of the article is below the 'fedora' line.

 

[Rat Pack]

Great discussion. Some of you could write for Websters !

 

[Tango Yankee]

Webster's doesn't go into such detail:

fe-do-ra: n. A soft felt hat with a somewhat curved brim, worn by men.

From "Webster's Super New School and Office Dictionary" Copyright 1974. (Guess I ought to get a newer one, huh? I've heard they've added a few words since then.)

Cheers,
Tom

 

[DAJE]

When I read the thread title, my first thought was "Oh good, another endless and unwinnable internet debate, just what the world needs."

Even if it were possible for Fed Loungers to come up with a definition that was universally agreed-upon, it wouldn't make a shred of difference to anyone outside the FL.

We're on the internet, where people can't even grasp the difference between you're and your and the vast majority of people think you make a word into a plural by adding an apostrophe and an S to the end of it. Do you really think anyone gives a damn about the correct meaning of the word "Fedora"?

"Fedora" in current real-world usage means: 1. those crappy polyester stingy-brimmed things that the "cool" kids are wearing, 2. any hat that people wore in the olden days that isn't a cowboy hat or a bowler/derby or a top hat.

 

[DarkAudit]

That crappy stingy brimmed straw thing got me wanting a proper hat and led me here.

And of course, now that I've got a proper hat on the way, I need a decent suit to wear with it too.

 

[DAJE]

That crappy stingy brimmed straw thing got me wanting a proper hat and led me here.

Even the cheapest straw is a whole lot nicer than the polyester stuff they make those chainstore-fashion-hats out of. I have no problem with cheap straw fedoras, as my recent post on the "Post New Hats Here!" thread will demonstrate.

 

[Tiller]

Webster's doesn't go into such detail:

fe-do-ra: n. A soft felt hat with a somewhat curved brim, worn by men.

From "Webster's Super New School and Office Dictionary" Copyright 1974. (Guess I ought to get a newer one, huh? I've heard they've added a few words since then.)

Cheers,
Tom

Sounds good to me Tom. lol. What the saying? "Keep it simple".

 

[Mr. Paladin]

So....how many fedoras can dance on the head of a pin? lol

 

[Dewhurst]

I have always considered the word "Fedora" in terms of form. Like the word "Book" it describes an item in general terms or qualifications in order to categorize like with like. Books may be tall, long, short, fat, quarter bound, half bound, in leather, linen, prepared paper, page edges may be sanded, rag, gilded, stained, spines may be perfect bound, smythe sewn, or stapled, there may be stamping on the board surfaces, raised bands on the spine surface, paper may be cream colored, rainbow colored, acidic, have an alkaline reserve, print may be large, small, any of hundreds of fonts, dark or light, any language that is fit to print, there may be pictures, words, pictures with words or just pictures.

The single word "Book" describes all of these very similar items and I have always understood "Fedora" to be closer to this than to a clinical description of rhinopharyngitis

 

[W4ASZ]

I was looking, without success, for a picture of Sarah Bernhardt in her role as Fedora and wearing her famous lid. I can't find it, but that is the only true fedora, and everything else is derivative.

There is general agreement among those present that the category is rather amorphous. What's wrong with that ?

The 1918 film "Fedora" is believed lost. In reading this thread I have joined it.