Were They Really White Fedoras Back Then ?

[Old Fogey UK]

In early 1930's photos, a lot of mens hats look white (I thought only Capone and mobsters wore white) - were they really that colour, or is it just that light gray comes out as pure white on old film stock ?
This has troubled me for some time. Sad, isn't it ?....

 

[Joedahat]

White Hats

In my experience they were really white. Some old timers told me that the true beaver fur felt took the bleaching process very well. When the switch was made to mostly rabbit fur, the process to make hats white was to bleach them then coat them with a white finishing powder. After a few months the white powder wore off, or ended up on your suit or topcoat,:cry: and you wound up with a mottled light grey / light tan hat.

 

[Fedora]

In my experience they were really white. Some old timers told me that the true beaver fur felt took the bleaching process very well. When the switch was made to mostly rabbit fur, the process to make hats white was to bleach them then coat them with a white finishing powder. After a few months the white powder wore off, or ended up on your suit or topcoat,:cry: and you wound up with a mottled light grey / light tan hat.

Bleached beaver was never white and always was a mix of a tan/grey. White felt comes only with pigmentation being added.
Beaver does not make a completly white hat even with pigmentation and an off white is as close as you can get. Rabbit will make a whiter white and hare also does not make a very white white. There is a new breed of huge white rabbits that does make for the whites hats but still you have to add other furs from other rabbit to get it to felt well. Most furs do not felt and when you see things like mink you need to realize that these furs were just a blend containing some mink as mink alone never felted.

This is all straight from the mouth of some of the oldest felters in America that I use .

Fedora

 

[fedoralover]

Fedora, I really appreciate the info you are passing on about this stuff. I find it all very interesting.

regards fedoralover

 

[Mr. 'H']

Are you sure that these hats weren't light taupe hats? You know, the ones with a dark band, the type you see in lots of thirties films, e.g. King Kong 1933, Platinum Blond, etc.

 

[Art Fawcett]

In all the years I have been renovating vintage hats I have never had a truly white hat that is not a modern hat.. Cream, light tan, and pearl all will show up as white in a photograph ( the old way, not the new digital) so I suspect this is the case. My hats have gone back all the way to the 1830s so the experience isn't a small matter.

 

[Brad Bowers]

I've got a Stack hat from the '40s that looks white to the eye, but when you put it next to something that is REALLY white, it becomes off-white.

One thing is certain from films and photos, though: In the '30s, these "almost white" hats were a lot more common than in later years. Perhaps they went out of fashion during WWII because the national mood was different.

Brad

 

[Twitch]

I am reminded of the legend of the Lone Ranger where after the rangers were ambushed and left for dead his hat lay in the sun and bleached out from a dark color to, I guess, white.

 

[besdor]

white hats

Pure white is very difficult to make . I have seen pure beaver hats from the 1920's that were off white -about as close to white as can be. Borsalino does make a pure white hat as does Biltmore but that about it .
One major problem is cleaning the machinery to make the white hats . :cool2: It's a lot of work .

 

[Mr. 'H']

What would white hats actually go with?

I'm having a hard time visualizing a white hat.

Can someone please supply a photo??

 

[Biltmore Bob]

red pearl snap shirts, blue jeans, Tony Lamas, chaps, horse, etc...

 

[Andykev]

White is hard to do.

In the black and white photos of the day, a cream hat, or very, very light tan would photograph as looking white. Most of my vintage...are the grey, but I have one that is very very light (a Dunlap) which will look white. Esp. since it has a black band.

BTW, this light light gray hat...I worry about it getting dirty..dust, fingerprints, etc. Why would you even want a "pure" white hat? It wouldn't stay that way for long, and the cleaning would be a nightmare!

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Years ago, I got into the warehouse of a menswear store that had opened in the 1890s and closed in the 1970s. On a tall metal rack were hanging some fedoras from the 1920s. They were all dusty, but I could see that two of them were not only cream-colored, but FUZZY. As fuzzy as this:

Proof positive of the debt that the '70s "pimp look" owed to the '20s.

 

[jpdesign]

Borsalino and biltmore both shut down there other production for a couple of days each year, clean the machinery, make white hats, then clean the machinery again, the resume production. Al Capone, after heis rise to power, was fond of wearing Borsalino, eggshell white, homburgs. He can down to Fort Worth in order to muscle in on the mob run gambling, saloons, and brotthels in Hell's Half Acre. He bought 19 hats at Peters Bros. during his trip.

Jimmy

 

[JDCrockett]

Or Green?

I was watching the 1933 fiilm "42nd Street" with Ruby Keeler and enjoying the
great suits, hats etc. The director in the story, Julian Marsh was at the first audition for the chorus girls in a great medium toned double breasted suit, that I assumed was gray or blue and had on a very light hat with a dark ribbon.
I'm thinking gee great white hat, until one of the characters asks for Marsh by
name and the choreographer points and says "That's him over there with the
green hat!" Must have been light lime green, maybe over a tan or green suit.
Boy the things I've seen in these great old films since starting my education here at the lounge. Unfortunately I couldn't watch the whole movie but I saw a lot
of great clothes, I'm adding the DVD to my wish list for further study!

 

[Mycroft]

Years ago, I got into the warehouse of a menswear store that had opened in the 1890s and closed in the 1970s. On a tall metal rack were hanging some fedoras from the 1920s. They were all dusty, but I could see that two of them were not only cream-colored, but FUZZY. As fuzzy as this:

Proof positive of the debt that the '70s "pimp look" owed to the '20s.

Acually, from what I have seen and read the fuzzy fedora came before the smooth one, the alpine and mountain hats in Switzerland orginally were fuzzy and so were th German/Austrian ones too. This can be seen in one of the Shelock Holmes episodes with Jermey Brett or on adolf hilter (I refuse to capitlize that name).

 

[Marc Chevalier]

That one doesn't look particularly fuzzy to me. Nappy, maybe, but not FUZZY.

 

[Mycroft]

It is the photo, in the show it is much more fuzzy, this is the only photo I could find.

 

[BellyTank]

Fuzzy Angora Borsalino-

But not the long-haired variety.

B
T

 

[Mycroft]

Fuzzy Angora Borsalino-

But not the long-haired variety.

B
T

Thanks BT for finding that one.