New Best Friend

[Shademaker]

After seeing all the very cool hats that you guys are bopping around in, I thought I would have a quick look in my local hat shop. Big mistake! For the most part, they vend cowboy hats. This is the southwest. Two walls were filled with every manner of cowboy hat but that is not what I was looking for. Then I saw them, five styles of Borsalino hats on the far wall. One of them was exactly how I would order a custom hat. I am very partial to cloth sweatbands as I am to leather hatbands. I like the fur to be high quality but light gauge and unlined for more breath ability. The color should be an outdoorsy color. I am an outdoors person who is into photography. I own one suit, a nice super light, $900 suit but will only wear it if someone dies or gets married. If I am getting dressed up, you will more likely find me in my Remy leather jacket, some kind of New Zealand lambskin I believe.

Well there it was, a Borsalino Safari Crushable in a nice neutralized sage green.

189 bucks! I have never spent so much on a hat in my life but yes they had my size and it went on like there was nothing there. The fur is soft and very light in weight.

I told her, the Chinese hat wonder girl (she is a specialist in cleaning, blocking and renovating hats and she is good), that it was far too expensive. I went home. I watered the plants in the front yard. I got back in my vehicle, returned to her shop, and bought that hat. Don't have a photo yet but the better image I have found on the net is Here

Now I intend to use this hat traveling in many kinds of weather as it says inside the crown, Rain Proof Line, Water Resistant Fur Felt. There will be times I will wear my Tilley for various reasons but have this one along for the colder hours in the mountain, early desert hours and just walking around town or sitting in an outdoor patio of a quaint cafe. The one thing I did not get with the hat is instructions on just how much I can fold or smash it or what method to use when I do so. Can anyone help with this particular Borsalino hat?

 

[Dave Keith]

Hey Shademaker,

Go to the Peters Brothers website at petersbros.com then click on Borsalino, scroll down to the Traveler, then click for the demo on folding your hat.

 

[Shademaker]

Thank you so much Dave. That method works perfectly. It is very easy to fold and to re-deploy to its original shape. I don't baby my things and travel a lot, being an aerial mapping photographer and avid hiking/backpacking photographer. This hat will fit in perfectly.

 

[Aerol]

Borso traveller

I have an older Borso traveller hat. I perfectly matches my ancient Barbour coat, and the two of them have been around the world with me. I hope you get as much use out of yours as I have out of mine.

 

[Shademaker]

Very cool Aerol. That is the kind of vintage hat I would look for. I am amazed at how nice this Borsalino Safari is. The weight of the fur felt is just perfect, there is no break-in period and like the Chinese hat girl said, the unlined light fur felt is comfortable over a much wider temperature range than the heavier stuff. I really didn't expect to find it locally.

 

[Shademaker]

Got a photo of it finally. This is the most comfortable hat I have ever worn. In a couple of days it feels as if it is a part of me.

 

[RBH]

Very adventurous looking lid.
You wear it well.

 

[GA Wildlifer]

Will the brim snap in back?

I have liked the B Traveler ever since I started wearing hats but have never seen one in person. Would you describe it from a hat wearers perspective? How heavy is it? Is it too stiff, soft or floppy? Will the brim snap up in back?

I would really like to get your opinion on the details. I am even more interested since it seems to match a barbour so well. My Beaufort has been my everyday jacket since 1988. Well my wife is wearing my first one now. It must have shrunk. My current one has lasted since 1994. It is great from Fall to Spring with the removable liner.

Thanks for your info on the Traveler.

 

[MattC]

The brim can be worn up or down

The hat is butterey soft, but always gets back to its basic shape.

 

[Shademaker]

I have liked the B Traveler ever since I started wearing hats but have never seen one in person. Would you describe it from a hat wearers perspective? How heavy is it? Is it too stiff, soft or floppy? Will the brim snap up in back?

I would really like to get your opinion on the details. I am even more interested since it seems to match a barbour so well. My Beaufort has been my everyday jacket since 1988. Well my wife is wearing my first one now. It must have shrunk. My current one has lasted since 1994. It is great from Fall to Spring with the removable liner.

Thanks for your info on the Traveler.

Sorry I did not get back to you sooner. I have been traveling the southern California deserts through the Mohave into Death Valley. I took the Borsalino with me and we camped every night. The hat holds up to all manner of treatment. I don't abuse my hats but they have to travel and not be fussy primadonnas either.

This hat is oh so comfortable. The brim snaps up all around. You can snap it up just in back or just in front.........or both. As a photographer, I often snap it up in front when I am behind the camera. When I lay it down in a restaurant, I snap it up all the way around. Outside in the sun or weather, I let it down all around as in the image above. The hat keeps its shape even if bashed a bit.

Our first night was in a very rare blizzard. The snow was dry snow in high deserts. The following night it snowed a very little bit and the rest of the trip was much warmer and sunny in the days with cool to cold nights depending on our elevation. We topped some of the highest dunes in north America, camped in most every condition but didn't ever get wet rain. The hat has been to -282 mean sea level at Badwater out on the salt flats.

The hat rather disappears on your head. It is light in weight so you forget you are wearing it till you take it off and sun blasts your eyes or the cold assaults your head. Then you just put it back on and sigh at the comfort and security a good hat gives you out there. A very stiff wind will bend down the brim some but it does that with other outdoor hats as well. Some may find it soft for their tastes I reckon but some find other stiff, starchy hats not soft enough. It is a matter of taste. I like it. We were in some extremely stiff winds at times.

The hat totally conforms to your head and does it almost immediately. It just feels good. I got the sage green which is green with lots of gray, a beautiful color that goes with many things. I think they are offered in a Pecan brown as well which should look great.

I like the finer things, only write and take notes with high quality gold nib fountain pens on Moleskine notebooks and the like. This hat travels the wilds and the cities with style. It would look super with a trench coat as it does with casual traveling clothes for the road, the trails, desert both high and low and on into the mountains.