Two Philly stores no longer sell good new fedoras (?)

[Young fogey]

I have almost all the fedoras I could want but like to see what's out there. Two places I used early on (before discovering the flea-market and big antique-mart bonanza so now almost all my hats are vintage; eight in use, seven old), Hats in the Belfry and another on South Street (run by Asians), seem to no longer sell good, grown-up, real fedoras any more such as Stetsons and Dobbses but rather the cheap junk the kids want (because that's what sells?). Hats in the Belfry always had Capas and its house brand but made OK knockoffs of good fedoras to get young men started with fedoras. (Still have a grey Capas as a spare hat.) Like what Banana Republic sold recently as part of a 'Mad Men' collection rather than real fedoras. South Street Hats, run by black gentlemen well before the fad and will remain long after, still has some nice ones.

It seems to tell me the 'Mad Men' fad will go the way of the martini-bar/Rat Pack and swing ones among kids about 15 years ago.

That'll leave the old diehards (I see a different one, and only one, every week, on Sunday, always an older black man) and us, and maybe a next generation to enjoy real hats and rebuild this whole midcentury culture.

In South Philly it's extinct.

Went to the Columbus Day parade on South Broad in full grey Sinatra gear (suit and Adam stingy-brim hat), filming like the newspaperman I am (one older gent in the parade: 'That's what a newspaperman's supposed to look like!') and had my Geator moment. In the crowd there were only four fedora-wearers, me, the Geator in a powder-blue novelty one, an older gent in a Bear Bryant and a kid in a hipster one. Jerry 'the Geator' Blavat saw me from the car he was riding in and yelled to me, 'Yo! I want my hat back!'

Was a newspaperman anyway. Turning into an online video reporter. Which is fine.

Les Richards in Cherry Hill has Borsalinos but they're ugly hipsterified ones to try to get the kids' market. And they cost far too much.

 

[DJH]

Hmm, I had been hoping to call at South Street Hats while in Philly a few weeks ago but it was closed. To be honest, it looked out of business, but I believe it might have always looked that way.

Will try again when back in the area, our daughter is a student at Drexel so we are there from time to time.

 

[tonyb]

... Two places ... no longer sell good, grown-up, real fedoras any more such as Stetsons and Dobbses but rather the cheap junk the kids want (because that's what sells?) ...

That's the answer, I think.