My Blue Heaven

[mayserwegener]

Thank you for the tip on the Velour. It's interesting how much that hat resembles the Indiana Jones Poet. I don't have any idea what impact men's fashion from the German-speaking world had on England in the 1890s. Clearly France was a major influence on the Aesthetic Movement.

Austrian Velour hats were popular in England from around 1910 until the early 1950s. The HJ Poet you posted above is a Austrian Velour like Dress Hat and probably sourced by an Austrian or Czech (Tonak was JHS up to WWII) hat company.

 

[Nathaniel Finley]

Austrian Velour hats were popular in England from around 1910 until the early 1950s. The HJ Poet you posted above is a Austrian Velour like Dress Hat and probably sourced by an Austrian or Czech (Tonak was JHS up to WWII) hat company.

1910 seems to be too late to factor into HJs naming of their model as it was out already sometime in the 1890s, but I would really, really like to see what the original Poet looked like.

 

[Bob Roberts]

I would love to see a turn of the century Poet or even a decade or 2 (or 3) later.

 

[mayserwegener]

1910 seems to be too late to factor into HJs naming of their model as it was out already sometime in the 1890s, but I would really, really like to see what the original Poet looked like.

As I mentioned "The Hatters Gazette" and H.J. catalogs (will be very hard to find) are your options. Based on my experience with old German and Austrian Stiff and Soft Felt Hats you are not going to find an old H.J. Soft or Stiff Felt Hat with "The Poet" stamped on the sweatband or printed on the liner. Also did H.J. have their own factories? Did they produce their own felt?

 

[RJR]

As I mentioned "The Hatters Gazette" and H.J. catalogs (will be very hard to find) are your options. Based on my experience with old German and Austrian Stiff and Soft Felt Hats you are not going to find an old H.J. Soft or Stiff Felt Hat with "The Poet" stamped on the sweatband or printed on the liner. Also did H.J. have their own factories? Did they produce their own felt?

FWIW:I haven't gone back to study the HJ thread on COW but memory says that their new hatter "Jack"was discussing where the original blocks were found and he mentioned a UK felt source.

 

[mayserwegener]

FWIW:I haven't gone back to study the HJ thread on COW but memory says that their new hatter "Jack"was discussing where the original blocks were found and he mentioned a UK felt source.

If you have a link it would be interesting to see what he has to say. As I mentioned I am skeptical of passed down / second hand information. I want to see documented proof. There isn't anyone focused on the English Hat Industry as far as I know.

 

[RJR]

If you have a link it would be interesting to see what he has to say. As I mentioned I am skeptical of passed down / second hand information. I want to see documented proof. There isn't anyone focused on the English Hat Industry as far as I know.

I'll go back later today and see if I can find the conversation,it was several weeks ago.

 

[mayserwegener]

I would like to see some documents, photos of the factory? Was Herbert Johnson a Hat / Felt Factory or were they a supplier that sourced hats? I did a quick search and not much comes up on Herbert Johnson. One small mention in the "The American Hatter, Volume 33 (1903) which appears to point to them as a supplier.

https://books.google.com/books?id=a_pYAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA5-PA84&dq=herbert+johnson+hats&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwidvPeh5IvWAhXs34MKHY8ODaEQ6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=herbert johnson hats&f=false

 

[tropicalbob]

View attachment 84247 wilde View attachment 84248 joyce View attachment 84249 yeats

even irish poets like hats

I mentioned some pages earlier that Joyce, in Ulysses, has his character Stephen thinking about how he had simply had to have a "Left Bank hat" when he was a student in Paris (I think it's in the Proteus chapter). This would have been around 1900.

 

[tropicalbob]

Are we certain that Herbert Johnson first named this style "The Poet"? To me, their website is unclear on that matter. It says only, "The 'Poet' had been made by Herbert Johnson since the 1890's..." but that doesn't specify that they invented the style or that they named it. If they did, and it was the early to mid 1890's, I would have to say that's evidence that it was indeed named after Oscar Wilde since he was wildly popular (no pun intended). It would be hard to believe after 1895, though, since that's the year of Wilde's conviction for 'indecency.'

In the end, it could be named after neither Wilde nor Whitman, and without further evidence I am seeing how speculative this discussion is. I assume Herbert Johnson has archives of that time but would they open them for amateur historical investigation? (not that I can afford to go to London right now but one can still dream!)

I don't think it was a case of one vs. the other. Whitman was extremely popular with the Symbolistes and the Avant-garde (see R.L.Stevenson's essay on him for an idea of the nature and extent of that popularity). Wilde went out of his way during his first American speaking tour to visit Whitman in Camden, which he described very clearly as an act of "homage." It was during that same tour that Wilde became ecstatic over the outfits he saw the cowboys wearing in Colorado, where he was treated very kindly. Don't forget that the travelling shows of such characters as Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill were hugely popular in Europe.
I think these factors influenced the development of the "Poet's hat" as an alternative to the helmet-like bowler and other symbols of late-19th Century authority.

 

[RJR]

I'll go back later today and see if I can find the conversation,it was several weeks ago.

I went back to COW and it seems that the thread has been deleted/locked.I'm only an occasional viewer over there so I don't know ant of the moderators.It seems that "Jack@HJ"either dropped his membership or suspended it to concentrate on his hatmaking.They are trying to get permission from him to make the thread permanent.I'll confess that I don't understand what happened.Perhaps someone else here is also a member over there and can comment.

 

[tropicalbob]

Found it! I knew there was a piece of art showing a romantic poet in a big hat. It's Goethe!
If there is one poet - and one image - which could have, for an entire century, associated poets with wide-brimmed, high-crowned fedoras, this is it.

I reckon "the poet" is named for Goethe, and the hat became a stock characterization of poets on the Victorian stage. This is why Whitman wore it, and why Wilde wore it.

That's my theory.
View attachment 84303

Great catch! This is an incredibly important painting in a number of ways, but most importantly it shows the "naturalness" of the subject: the sombrero-type hat (to ward off the intense rays of the Italian sun), the homespun cloth of the robe, the flat heels of the shoes, etc. Such an outfit makes sense to us today, but this was painted in 1787, when most European men of his class were still wearing powdered wigs and high heels. The year also puts it right at the beginning of Romanticism, which was all about that naturalness and, in turn, had its origins in Rousseau's Noble Savage ("Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains"). You're probably right about the hat being named after Goethe, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if it didn't have its origins in America. It was the American revolutionaries, after all, who were known for dispensing with the wigs.
In Whitman's case, though, I think the hat you see him sporting on the inside of "Leaves of Grass" was a very common straw hat that was worn by working men all over the U.S., and which can be seen in early paintings of bargemen on the Mississippi, and in paintings of the South. He's showing himself as the "Natural" man.

 

[jlee562]

COW is one of the most poorly moderated boards of any I've ever posted on. Actually, they probably take the cake. I frankly have no idea what conflict the mods over there see in locking that thread.

They have a newly established Facebook page, so you might be able to reach out for information. IIRC, the story goes that "the" Indy block had been forgotten about in storage, and covered in cloth. They replicated a set of blocks from the original.

https://www.facebook.com/Herbert-Johnson-Hatters-Piccadilly-590501921150110/

 

[tropicalbob]

I would love to see a turn of the century Poet or even a decade or 2 (or 3) later.

I think the hat being sported by Wilde in the two portraits, and the one being worn by Ezra Pound, is as close as you'll get.

 

[scottyrocks]

COW is one of the most poorly moderated boards of any I've ever posted on. Actually, they probably take the cake. I frankly have no idea what conflict the mods over there see in locking that thread.

The goings-on there could fill a book, in its own right.

 

[mayserwegener]

I went back to COW and it seems that the thread has been deleted/locked.I'm only an occasional viewer over there so I don't know ant of the moderators.It seems that "Jack@HJ"either dropped his membership or suspended it to concentrate on his hatmaking.They are trying to get permission from him to make the thread permanent.I'll confess that I don't understand what happened.Perhaps someone else here is also a member over there and can comment.

Thank you for checking. I will believe that the "The Poet" model goes back to 1890 when I see solid evidence and not second hand / passed down information (made up?). From what I can find (searching 1890 to 1950) it appears H.J. was a supplier and there is no evidence of a Hat Factory.

Side Note:

I do not see anything unique about the Indy Hat. It's just a Soft Felt Snap Brim Hat with a tall Crown, wide Brim and Smooth Finish.

 

[scottyrocks]

Then there is always the possibility that 'the Poet' is just a name that HJ had been using, and then was given to a 'new' hat they made with a soft felt snap brim with a tall crown and wide brim, which was then chosen however many years later by Ford or Nadoolman or Spielberg or any of the three.

 

[mayserwegener]

Someone that is interested (not me but would appreciate) should put together a factual / documented history of Herbert Johnson. Also produce a factual / documented history of the H.J. "The Poet" model going back to 1890.

 

[Seb Lucas]

It just occurred to me that one of the Dr's from Dr Who wore a Poet. Anyone know what year that was? I'm not much of a Dr Who guy.
But if the Poets were big furry hats until at least 1970, we could maybe narrow down when the more well known incarnation of The Poet came to be.

The fourth Dr Who wore the plush felt hat from 1976 (bottle green) to 1981 (burgundy). He originally wore another HJ hat in a basic sooth brown felt in 1975.



The Doctor came to this hat at the end of their fashion. I remember that soft, wide brimmed hats were very fashionable in the early 1970's, generally with men who identified as literary or theatrical players.

Some actually were actors and writers. Many were just wannabes - the artist manque. The Doctor's costume was meant to be influenced by Toulouse Lautrec's portrait of Astride Bruant - including the scarf - so the look was inspired by a 19th century European arts style.



Generally a poet style hat suggests an effete and somewhat languid persona, not a dynamic, pragmatic, archeologist, art thief.

Truman Capote wore a wide brimmed soft felt hat for many years too.

The other people who wore fluffy hats like this in 1971 were pimps...

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Yep, Tom Baker really abused that hat I remember him stuffing it into his pocket on many occasions. http://www.thepropgallery.com/fourth-doctor-tom-baker-hat