The 1919 Win the War hat - war conservation effort

[mayserwegener]

There is NO DIFFERENCE in felt consistency or stiffening on these early hats only the brim curl differs from some later "Fedora" concepts. Soft hats are a broad but distinct category. Early 1920's trade and ads show far more curled up-brims than flat or snap-brims. A tensioned full bound curl will give added firmness to the brim edge but does not change the rest of the hat.

Buler thanks for the post and lets get back to the original wartime focus and possible qualitative change.

Hat variety and quality certainly was at a higher level again in the 20's and to some extent in the 30's despite poor economic times. The drop is much more noticeable during and after WW2 and was generally permanent.
WW2 era Hat Life has very similar suggestions for simplification and economy and how to explain the much reduced offerings to frustrated customers.

+1

 

[rlk]

:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap Excellent! You described it perfectly. In order to get the correct brim curl like a bowler the brim needs to be just as stiff but the crown can be less so as it doesn't have to remain round for its entire life.
You have quite a piece of history there. I hope you store it well. Those examples are tough to find these days.

I have a very short crown bowler from before WWI. It needs quite a bit of work but it is a great example of a bowler at the time as well. There were various crown heights and brim widths for bowlers. They are great hats but the homburgs are more versatile. Doc Holliday was known to wear a homburg, bowler or a riverboat gambler as some call it----not a cowboy hat as portrayed in films. A couple of examples:
with moustache and without:

WRONG read my comments above. You are entirely missing much of the world and hat-making history. Stiff brims are for style/durability not to enable the edge to curl. Plenty of curled brims are soft. These are different hat categories that had a brief hybrid period from limited sources. Soft hats with curled brims were around both before and after. Soft crown bowlerish hats are a genetic separate dead branch.

No one ever called any hat a "Fedora" or "Homburg" until the 1880's.

 

[buler]

Woo Woo - lets get her back on the tracks

These recent posts are also interesting but off topic. Maybe RBH could move them to the "fedora" thread dinerman posted earlier.

B

 

[buler]

I realize that the meeting discussed in the article was in August 1918 and the article is from Sept 1918 and the war ended in Nov 1918. So many hatters probably didn't bat an eye at these proposed changes. But it seems some may have (see the Knox ad). My thought was this may have seeded some of these ideas into the manufacturers heads and led to some of the changes we know happened.

B

 

[mayserwegener]

But Knox went back to making (assuming they implemented such measures) such hats in the 20s. I think you also have to take in to account the political nature of The American Hatter.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I think you also have to take in to account the political nature of The American Hatter.

Agreed.