The International Wool Felt Consortium

[scottyrocks]

The nice thing about wearing a wool felt hat when you're driving a truck is that it will take any kind of beating you can throw at it, and bounce right back into shape. Run over it, have it blow off your head to land in a ditch, smack it into the bottom of a trailer, turn it inside out and throw it across the cab in a fit of road rage... Sure, it basically looks like a fancy horse blanket stuck on your head, but fine fur felts are just too delicate for this environment.

I have found this to be completely untrue. In my experience, fur felt fedoras can take a beating, and then return to their original shape better than wool felts. After a rainstorm, a fur felt can be poked back into shape and left to dry, looking like it did before hand. A wool hat shrivels up into something that looks very little like its original shape. The brims get all wavy and the crown tapers unmercifully. They may last a long time, but they don't hold their shape nearly as well as furs, again, in my own experience.

 

[jlee562]

I have found this to be completely untrue. In my experience, fur felt fedoras can take a beating, and then return to their original shape better than wool felts. After a rainstorm, a fur felt can be poked back into shape and left to dry, looking like it did before hand. A wool hat shrivels up into something that looks very little like its original shape. The brims get all wavy and the crown tapers unmercifully. They may last a long time, but they don't hold their shape nearly as well as furs, again, in my own experience.

I have to concur with this as well. Don't get me wrong, I had a wool stingy that I wore daily for a long time (and eventually it became a hand me down hat to a friend), but a good fur felt is more durable and you can steam it back into shape.

 

[AdamW]

AdamW - have you tried the Stetson Cashmere hats?

The Fedora Store

The only place I can find them on the web is the Fedora Store, however I've encountered them at two hat shops in Des Moines. They aren't bad hats, honestly. They're a little more luxurious than plain wool and yet much less expensive than fur. You might look into it. [huh]

Nice call! That looks nice for sure. Sad they only seem to have that precise style, but hey, it's a nice style.

 

[AdamW]

Since the Pachacuti hats are on sale at the moment I've decided to pull the trigger on a couple for use when I'm in the UK (I go back to visit family sometimes). So I'll have them delivered over there are try them out when I'm there next month. Can't hurt too much for 20-30 quid a pop. Only hat I have in the UK at the moment is a pretty nasty M&S one.

 

[AdamW]

Since I promised pictures - here's the homburg:

And here's the wool felt fedora, for comparison:

Sorry for the poor pictures, bit tricky taking pictures of yourself in a mirror with an SLR...

 

[AdamW]

Knudsen works with wool felt, though they deal most in Western hats.

The Fedora Store also has customizable wool hats through Beaver Brand.

Knudsen do actually have rather a lot of pretty fun styles in wool, now I look at their page. They have a wool Homburg which is rather more expensive than the Bailey one; maybe that'd be better quality. Thanks for that reference too!

Guess I have a lot of spending, I'm sorry, research to do...

 

[Gin&Tonics]

This is a fascinating thread, and extremely helpful/tantilizing for me. Being a relatively new "bold" wearer of hats, my currently collection includes the following:

a crappy $10 straw hat I bought on a whim in Mexico, sort of a fedora style
a blue with gray flecks cotton cloth trilby with a grey herringbone band that I bought on massive discount for $8.99 and wear almost daily
a black wool felt homburg by Scala with leather sweatband and silk(satin?) lining and black grosgrain ribbon and bow
and my oldest hat, a black western (slouch hat?) made, I think, of wool felt with a red silk lining that I received in highschool for christmas over a decade ago

What's interesting is that I've worn that western hat on various camping trips and in horrible weather, it's been completely soaked with rain, sweat, worn in hot sun etc, and while the lining has discoloured over time and there's some salt stains (should remove those using tips from FL) the crown has not tapered nor the hat shrunk even one little bit, and the brim retains its shape beautifully. A few times it's been bent in funny ways because of where I have to store it, but it always bends back quite well. I'm fairly sure it's wool felt, and by the sounds of it, it's a special gem to hold up so well for so long.

We'll see how well my homburg holds up. I'm not ethically opposed to wearing a fur hat, but over $100 for a hat is a mighty tough sell to my wife, who isn't a huge fan of my recent appreciation of fine dress clothing to begin with. It took convincing for her to be okay with me spending $34.50 plus shipping for the Homburg! It occurs to me that wool should be respected in the sense that it can be such an excellent "gateway" hat for those who wish to try wearing hats daily, or wish to try a new style, yet are apprehensive about how it may look or about investing so much in what may prove not to be their cup of tea. With a $30-$50 hat, if it turns out that you either don't like the particular style, or don't like wearing hats at all, no big loss! In my case, for example, I'm considering buying and wearing a bowler hat on a frequent basis, and I'd hate to shell out $255 for a Christy's fur felt bowler only to find that the style doesn't suit me and I don't like wearing it. If I buy a felt one for $50ish and end up rarely wearing it, well, that's no big deal.

I'll try and post some pics of my good old western hat if I get a chance, as it certainly seems to have withstood the test of time.

 

[jlee562]

Knudsen do actually have rather a lot of pretty fun styles in wool, now I look at their page. They have a wool Homburg which is rather more expensive than the Bailey one; maybe that'd be better quality. Thanks for that reference too!

Guess I have a lot of spending, I'm sorry, research to do...

The Knudsen hat would be custom made to your head measurements with a leather sweat and proper ribbon work. A lot of the factory made wool hats don't have the attention to detail that a custom hatter can provide.

 

[scottyrocks]

What's interesting is that I've worn that western hat on various camping trips and in horrible weather, it's been completely soaked with rain, sweat, worn in hot sun etc, and while the lining has discoloured over time and there's some salt stains (should remove those using tips from FL) the crown has not tapered nor the hat shrunk even one little bit, and the brim retains its shape beautifully. A few times it's been bent in funny ways because of where I have to store it, but it always bends back quite well. I'm fairly sure it's wool felt, and by the sounds of it, it's a special gem to hold up so well for so long.

Just curious. Does this hat have a wire in its brim?

 

[HHCassius]

...I'm not ethically opposed to wearing a fur hat, but over $100 for a hat is a mighty tough sell to my wife, who isn't a huge fan of my recent appreciation of fine dress clothing to begin with. It took convincing for her to be okay with me spending $34.50 plus shipping for the Homburg!

I'm so with you on this...

 

[Gin&Tonics]

Just curious. Does this hat have a wire in its brim?

I certainly don't hold myself out to be an expert, but if it has a wire anywhere in its brim, it's so well hidden as to be undetectable to me. I would fairly confidently say no.

Here's a pic of it (apologies for the crappyness, the lighting is awful in here):

Mmmmm salty...lol

Front view

Inside shot showing the now slightly discoloured red satin lining. The gold leaf-like image is a cowboy riding a bucking bronco with the manufacturer's name "Manning" above it. The hat is made in Canada, has a cotton sweatband and is otherwise unmarked except a little tag on the sweatband that just says "fits". There is absolutely no tapering or shape change in the crown other than that the creases that were already there have become slightly more pronounced because of my "three finger pinch" method of donning and doffing the hat.

Sorry again for the bad pics!

 

[1961MJS]

Hi

I would definitely agree with G&T on the intelligence of working out what hat style works for you before blowing the Big $ on a hat. On the other hand, any $ spent on a wool hat is spent on LEARNING, not on a long term capital asset. My 100% fur felt hats will be round in 25 years, the wool ones shrink in the rain (I can no longer wear my British WW2 Bush hat), or get eaten by Moths. The same thing can be said of buying a panama / straw / Milan hat, but at least they take the rain better and aren't susceptible to Moth damage. Of course, straw hats ARE susceptible to being sat on (ask me how I know?)

later

 

[Alex Oviatt]

[/IMG]

Here is a great looking wool hat from Orvis for $59--great value for a hat to knock around in. I have a similar one from Orvis in brown with a wider brim that I wear fly fishing and it has been through the ringer--literally--and still looks great. I wouldn't wear a good fur hat out on the river or in some sporting environment because they can come off and get wet, muddy, etc. These Orvis one pack nicely, too!

 

[DavidJ]

[/IMG]

Here is a great looking wool hat from Orvis for $59--great value for a hat to knock around in. I have a similar one from Orvis in brown with a wider brim that I wear fly fishing and it has been through the ringer--literally--and still looks great. I wouldn't wear a good fur hat out on the river or in some sporting environment because they can come off and get wet, muddy, etc. These Orvis one pack nicely, too!

I believe I have the same hat as you. I took it with me to a week-long trip in the outdoors. Held up fine, and you're right, it does pack well!

 

[gtdean48]

This wool hat has seen me thru years of backpacking on the AT with the Scout troop. It packed & trekked well..

Althought, I did take this vintage Stetson Casual on a paddle trip thru the Okefenokee swamp. RBH has it now...

 

[tealseal]

Newbie weighs in

It seems that there are two camps when it comes to people looking to buy a wool felt fedora.
1: Those who are interested in getting into wearing fedoras, and look to wool due to the availability of many styles at a very low price (Bailey, Scala, etc.)
2: Those who are interested in wool (or other shorn, not scalped) felts because of their particular value set, so price becomes less important.
I appreciate both of these camps, because I was a member of the first and respect the values of those in the second. Everyone deserves to have a hat they like and are comfortable with, whatever that means to them. It's hardly the business of those of us who prefer fur over wool to lambast wool as an inferior product, simply because it's not a bunny, nutria, or beaver, and vice versa.
There are good wool felts, and there are poor wool felts, just as there are good and poor fur felts; there are wool felts that will resist the elements better than others, same for furs. In a heavy-downpour contest, I'm sure my Akubra will defeat my Cervo, despite the Cervo being of, according to the price and touch, higher quality.
Sure, wool can require more maintenance than a fur in the form of more frequent applications of stiffiner and weather protectant (which I don't bother to put on furs...maybe just because I haven't had to yet), but that doesn't make them a bad hat! In my life I have had the priviledge of driving (and maintaining) both a Toyota Corolla and a BMW 3 series. The BMW required a LOT more work and money to keep running than the Toyota...does that make the BMW an inferior automobile?

Someone above mentioned Goorin. I had the opportunity to stop by a Goorin shop in Boston a few days ago (I like their caps). I took the time to handle some of their wool felt fedoras ($125-150). They felt very nice to me, somewhere between my Royal Deluxe Stetson Saxon and my Imperial Grade Federation IV. Just a bit too stingy for me - only one I saw had a brim approaching 2", the rest were 1-1.75" range.

TLDR final, major point: The highest quality hat a man has, is the one he loves wearing and caring for, be it fur, wool, leather, linen, cotton, straw.... End of newbie rant.

 

[1961MJS]

This wool hat has seen me thru years of backpacking on the AT with the Scout troop. It packed & trekked well..

Hi

I'm VERY curious about the Scout hat, I mean jeez, mine went from a large size 7 3/8 to a brimmed beanie in 2 inches of rain and 6 hours. Is it treated with anything (that you know of)? I have a few less expensive fur felts that I wear out doors, a Montana Peak from Jaxonbilt and a Resistol that Hatman Jack reshaped for me. Well, the Resistol was inexpensive anyway...

Later

 

[gtdean48]

...I'm VERY curious about the Scout hat, I mean jeez, mine went from a large size 7 3/8 to a brimmed beanie in 2 inches of rain and 6 hours. Is it treated with anything (that you know of)?
....

Most of my backpacking gear gets treated with this = http://www.kiwicampdry.com/
I use the Heavy Duty Water Repellent on wool hats.
Local Kroger has it with the shoe polish & laces....

 

[1961MJS]

Most of my backpacking gear gets treated with this = http://www.kiwicampdry.com/
I use the Heavy Duty Water Repellent on wool hats.
Local Kroger has it with the shoe polish & laces....

Thanks, can you steam it and re-shape still? If so, all of you Wool hat owners take heed. If you don't, you might end up buying a fedora and wearing a beanie like I did. When I get stuff out, I'll try and take a picture of the hat after the rain shrunk it.

Thanks again.

 

[gtdean48]

Thanks, can you steam it and re-shape still? ....

I don't use steam on wool. Like washing wool clothes, COLD water only.
Crushers like this are what I call "flop" hats, like the old time slouch hats. Not any real shaping going on but wear & tear.....