What do you think of the Indiana Jones hats?

[Mulceber]

Indy Jones in a fedora is fine, I suppose, but he's no Rick Blaine, Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, Nick Charles, Cody Jarrett, Jeff Bailey or ... well, I could go on and on.

HERESY! Indy belongs up there with all the rest of them!

if you ask for a lower crown or different brim measurements, you will get it.

Good point, I'd forgotten to mention that. Yeah, Steve will make the crown any height you want. I think I just tend to forget that because the majority of his clientèle want a screen-accurate size. -Mulceber

 

[David Bresch]

WHat is the difference between the Adventurebuilt and the Adventurebuilt Deluxe (from Germany)?

 

[Havana]

Regarding crown height...

I'm one of those who can't wear tall crowns. I've found that a C-crown takes the most height out of any open crown. With a center dent, you're just mashing the crown down some. With a C-crown, you're rolling it down and then back up again in the center which uses more material, reducing the overall height to a greater degree. I currently have a revamped Western style Akubra called a Bobby which features a 5.75" open crown. I've converted the hat into a fedora and have gotten the crown down to 4.5" by doing a C-crown. I could reduce the height even more if I made it into a very broad C-crown like commonly seem on Akubra Snowy Rivers.

 

[Donato]

Does anyone have an Indy (or other style) fedora made by Jimmy Pierce? I have heard good things about his custom made hats and they are even more reasonably priced, especially for Lounge members.
www.JimmyPierceDesigns.com
www.CustomFedora.com
Thanks!

 

[Kaleponi Craig]

WHat is the difference between the Adventurebuilt and the Adventurebuilt Deluxe (from Germany)?

The Adventurebilt Deluxe is made in Germany by Marc Kitter. Some of the materials he uses are better then Steve's Adventurebilt, including custom made kangaroo hide sweat bands. It's also priced in Euros, so right away it's more expensive then the regular Adventurebilt. I don't own one, so can't really tell you all the difference, but what both Marc and Steve have achieved is the absolute best, most screen accurate Indy hat on the planet...

http://www.adventurebiltdeluxe.com/

Both of these guys make fedoras like in the old days, like Art Fawcett does. Totally custom made from beginning to finish.

They are so good that Steven Speilberg chose Adventurebilt to make the hats for the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Not a bad recommendation for an Indy lid right there...KC

 

[NonEntity]

Impact of Raiders of the Lost Ark

It's easy to forget how hugely popular Raiders was--and still is. Zagat Survey, a movie watcher poll as opposed to a film critic poll, consistently shows it in the all-time top ten--right up there with classics like Casablanca, Gone With The Wind, and Citizen Kane. I like the movie, but personally would not put it in such company.

Skyvue's comment is right on. Raiders was originally released in 1981 and re-released several times for theaters in the few years thereafter. By the time it was released on videotape, VCRs had become very affordable and a gang of folks had them, and so people bought or purchased it. A few more years go by, then it was released to premium-channel cable, like HBO. By then, a lot more people had cable. Finally, it made it to basic TV. In addition, each time an Indy sequel was about to hit the theaters, Raiders flooded TV. Thus, savvy marketing and technology combined to keep the initially hugely popular Raiders an enduring populist favorite.

As for the hat craze it sparked, well, lot's of folks want to imitate their film heroes, so that's nothing out of the ordinary. (Why do I love the Walther PPK? Bond. James Bond.) But the timing of the film surely helped. Male headgear suffered a drastic decline with the rise of long hair in the late 1960s that continued for over a decade. Some attribute JFK's hatless look to the decline, also, but I think that's greatly exaggerated. Practically no men--I was a notable exception--wore hats during that period of time. Then, Urban Cowboy gave western-style hats a big lift, but Raiders was the first big and culturally influencial flick of the "post-hat era," if you will, to feature its lead with a fedora.

Those two factors made the fedora, and to some extent, all hats, popular again. A small minority learned what a fedora and other hats types really are, but most call any brimmed hat with any kind of bash/dents an "Indiana Jones hat." We fedora-wearers are annoyed by that misidentification, but we should also be thankful that Raiders put the hat back on many male heads, although they have yet to return to anything even approaching pre-1960s prevalence.

By the way, the film also boosted the popularity of some other things featured in it, among them, the bullwhip (David Morgan made it), leather jackets, the .45 revolver, even NAZI memorabilia, but none as much as the famous hat.

 

[Kaleponi Craig]

Very well said, NonEntity. You are right on about JFK and the decline of hats. It really wasn't all his fault, hats were on the decline years before he became president. There is a great book on this subject, I just wish I could remember the title. Maybe someone else here can remember...KC

 

[skyvue]

Raiders was the first big and culturally influencial flick of the "post-hat era," if you will, to feature its lead with a fedora.

I agree with much of what you said, but the above is not really true. BONNIE AND CLYDE, THE GODFATHER, THE STING, CHINATOWN -- these are all very popular, award-winning movies that featured primary characters who wore fedoras, and there were plenty of others over the years. And, for my money, every one of them is better than any of the Indiana Jones movies.

But they weren't aimed at the youth market, and they didn't benefit as greatly from cable TV and the introduction of VHS tapes.

Many of the same young-ish people who so love the IJ and Star Wars movies also turn to GREASE for their Fifties fixes, when there are all kinds of great movies that were actually made in the Fifties that they are completely unaware of.

It's just frustrating to me, as an old movies buff, that the movies that inspired STAR WARS and INDIANA JONES and GREASE are mostly forgotten by folks under forty.

 

[Edward]

It's always going to be the same, though. I mean, I encounter American kids on guitar forums all the time who are full of Led Zeppelin or the Stones but not interested in Muddy Waters.... I remember too hearing John Waters remark on how with CryBaby he was surprised to see how it was seized upon by kids too young to be aware of the teen movies he pastiched (is that a word?).

In any case, it's more recent stuff like that that will fire up an awful lot of folks to look back at the old stuff. I'm keener to see the old movies now that I'm into the look than I was before (backwards to most folks, I know): Indy got me into the fedoras, but it was the fedoras that then inspired me to look back at the earlier stuff.

Much as I love Grease, I wish they'd made it with some semblence of period correct clothing - most of it is characateur 50s at best and at worst just plain wrong. Happy Days is more convincingly 50s in the wardrobe department.... I can harp on about that all day, but hey - a lot of folks in the vintage community got into that via Grease back in the day. I guess we all have to start somewhere. [huh]

 

[Kaosharper1]

American Graffiti

Don't forget American Graffiti's contribution to reviving the 50s. Also, a lot of good period clothes on Masterpiece Theatre.

Foyle's War had some great hats.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

There are few articles of clothing in the history of film that are iconic: Dorothy's slippers, Bogart's trench, Marylin's white dress.

The Indiana Jones hat is iconic. Nothing else matches this hat's cultural impact.

 

[TimBer]

Hatless Jack

I have never read it, but you may be thinking of the book "Hatless Jack." Other than getting a comment about looking like IJ, I am thankful that Raiders reintroduced the fedora to us. If you are curious about other impacts of Raiders I would suggest stopping by your local university's anthropology department, find a tenured archaeologist and inquire about enrollment numbers relative to Raiders and the younger fans coming of age.
Then there's the bull whip. I wonder how many parents wish IJ had left the bull whip at home?

 

[RockBottom]

If you are curious about other impacts of Raiders I would suggest stopping by your local university's anthropology department, find a tenured archaeologist and inquire about enrollment numbers relative to Raiders and the younger fans coming of age.
Then there's the bull whip. I wonder how many parents wish IJ had left the bull whip at home?

I suspect archeology courses will be in great demand next year after the latest Indiana Jones installment is released this summer.

 

[Edward]

Of course! I took arachaeology for a semester as an undergraduate. I loved it - I even considered doing my degree in archaeology, but alas the job prespoects there were not so good. They say one in five law graduates ends up a practicing lawyer; one in one hundred archaeology students ends up an archaeologist.... If I didn't need money, I'd certainly be pretty quick to get myself in on some digs, though. I was always into histroy even as a small child, but seeing Temple in the cinema in 1984 really was what got me interested in archaeology.

 

[RockBottom]

Of course! I took arachaeology for a semester as an undergraduate. I loved it - I even considered doing my degree in archaeology, but alas the job prespoects there were not so good. They say one in five law graduates ends up a practicing lawyer; one in one hundred archaeology students ends up an archaeologist.... If I didn't need money, I'd certainly be pretty quick to get myself in on some digs, though. I was always into histroy even as a small child, but seeing Temple in the cinema in 1984 really was what got me interested in archaeology.

As a former philosophy major, I know what you mean.

 

[Kaleponi Craig]

Hatless Jack is the Book!

I have never read it, but you may be thinking of the book "Hatless Jack."

That's the book. It's a good read. The book talks about the fact that the hat industry was in a steep decline for years and that JFK really had very little to do with the death of the hat. It was more the post war generation that just didn't want to be like their dads. JFK just kind of put the nail in the coffin on his inauguration day when he took off his top hat,..KC

 

[mineral]

If I didn't need money, I'd certainly be pretty quick to get myself in on some digs, though.

You can if you still want.

There are many academic digs that need volunteers with loads of listings on the website of the Archaeological Institute of America, and it's a very nice way to spend a vacation. I was at one and I would never hesitate to join another one again.

 

[RBH]

I like them.
Some more than others, but most look pretty good as fedoras goes.

 

[indycop]

I like them.

Me too!

 

[Timeras]

Well, personally, at age 13, Raiders is what introduced the fedora to me in '81... I have since become the major old/classic movie buff, but to me, it is that hat that's the cultural icon. I've had other, cheapo fedoras before, but the appeal ebbed in my late 20's-30's... But now living in Seattle, I see the hat in more practical use (the weather), which is why I purchased a nice Indy wannabe in a thrift shop, and am currently converting it to Indy-ish standards.

I do have a technical question... I recently had the hat recrushed/blocked at Byrnie Utz, and while we were discussing the Indy-style fedora for a bit, he claimed that my hat was taller than the Indy...so the question is, when you measure the crown height, are you measuring it unbashed? or is it say, from brim to highest point of the bash? I've heard the Indy crown being 5.5"; and I measure mine at pretty close to that, but measured with the bash. (Interestingly, I don't see how the crown could be any shorter, and still have the dent look right... my head almost touches the dent underside when I'm wearing it).

So, How is the crown height measured?