Stingy brims

[FedoraFan112390]

A question--
when did stingy brims first start to become really big (in the 20th century)? Like around what years/decade?

When was the height of popularity of the larger brimmed fedora?

And lastly, when did fedoras hit their arguable peak of popularity?

 

[The Good]

First of all, stingy brim hats are cool. I'm thinking of getting one or two myself, some time.

I. I think stingy brim fedoras suddenly become very popular beginning around the mid or late 1950s. This extended into the '60s, as narrower widths were standard during that decade as well.

II. The wider brimmed fedoras were mainly worn between the 1930s and '40s, actually peaking in the latter decade. I'm not sure about the 1920s, and during the 1950s, at least, wider brims were still considered fashionable during the earlier part of it.

III. I'd say that the peak of fedora hat popularity would have been between the 1920s and up to the mid-1950s, or to 1960 or so. There was more of a decline during the 1950s and '60s, actually, although they were still worn, up to a certain point, by younger adult males.

I could be wrong about any of this. I wasn't actually there, but I'm just basing this off of some of what I read here, and of photographs or films of the era I've seen.

 

[Dinerman]

There are tons of threads covering all these questions in great depth. The search function's working well these days, so take a look through the pre-1940s threads, compare that with threads on typical hats of the 1940s and 1950s, like the whippet, and stratoliner threads. There are a fair number of threads on stingies for the later end of the spectrum.

But the brief answer- no decade had a set brim width. In the 1930s, you saw a lot of stingy 2-1/8" brims, but a lot of 3" brims. In the late 1950s, shorter brims came back into fashion, but wider brimmed hats were still available. Brims got shorter as the 1950s progressed, with the predominant fashion being the stingy brim from the late 1950s onward.

In my opinion the brim width didn't make as much of a difference as did the crown blocking. A tall, straight sided crown on an early '30s hat makes it look entirely different than a short, tapered one from the 1960s, even if the two have identical brim widths.
Brim flanging also changed over time,giving hats very different appearances, though you saw quite a variation even within the same years. In the 1930s, you saw nearly flat brimmed hats along side very curled brimmed fedoras. Ribbon styles and widths changed, brim edge finish popularity changed over time, sweatband width, color, stitching and texture changed over the years, and all that varied from manufacturer to manufacturer. What I'm getting at is there are many factors involved in dating hats. Brim width, while different sizes enjoyed periods of greater popularity, is a factor in helping place the date of a hat, but it is not the end all be all.

And to answer the last question- I'm not sure of the precise dates, but hat wearing has been on the decline since the 1920s. The fedora had its greatest popularity in the 1930s and 1940s, I believe.