J. Robert Oppenheimer Fedora

[AtomicEraTom]

I'm looking for that big brim really, which Is why I thought a western hat would be a good choice, plus I have tons of them. I would like a fedora ribbon though.

You bet. Starting with a reasonably good quality fur felt hat, the crease is fairly easy - though for sure, there are people here who can do a nicer job than you or I, and the height of the crown will limit your options. If you like some variation on a western brim, and you're happy to use the old ribbon, then you could do the whole job in a half hour. If you really want it to look just like a fedora style hat, with a deeper and narrower bound brim, classic ribbon etc., then ... in my very inexpert opinion, the simplest option is likely to be to buy a fedora. It's like, could you make a chest of drawers for your bedroom? You bet! Is that the way to go? Well ... if you want to, it is. On the bright side, no matter what, it's bound to look better than Oppenheimer's.

 

[mayserwegener]

Some other physicists in hats.

Fermi

Heisenberg

Einstein and Bohr

 

[Hereward]

Is it only me or can one really see how bonkers Bohr and Einstein were by their strange hats? Of course, they were geniuses so I do not mean this in a derogatory way.

 

[1961MJS]

Is it only me or can one really see how bonkers Bohr and Einstein were by their strange hats? Of course, they were geniuses so I do not mean this in a derogatory way.

Hi, they remind of several people I work with in that they don't seem to care how they look. Knowledge is everything. One 40 plus year old female software engineer wore a Zebco fishing hat to work for a few years.

Fermi looks good, maybe he was enough of any old romantic to keep himself well dressed? I didn't recognize Heisenberg's name even though I kept up on that sort of thing through college. You had to know Einstein had to have a weird hat (if he had one) based on his hair "style" alone. lol

Later

 

[ScottF]

Yes, and several posts back in this thread, yesterday morning, I speculated that this telescope crease would likely reduce the apparent crown height a little, compared to other more common options applied to an Akubra or other similar hat - think so?

Seems the conversation turned to creating fedora bashes in hats, so getting tough to follow.

Yes, it will decrease the crown height; in fact, because of this, adding a telescope crease will cause a hat that is normally too small to possibly fit your head. I know this for a fact, because I do it.

Edited to add: in fact, thought I wear midway between 7 1/4 and 7 3/8, my 'Oppenheimer Hat' is a slightly stretched 7 1/8 that barely fits as a western, but fits perfectly as an 'Oppenheimer'.

 

[danofarlington]

Hi, they remind of several people I work with in that they don't seem to care how they look. Knowledge is everything. One 40 plus year old female software engineer wore a Zebco fishing hat to work for a few years.

Fermi looks good, maybe he was enough of any old romantic to keep himself well dressed? I didn't recognize Heisenberg's name even though I kept up on that sort of thing through college. You had to know Einstein had to have a weird hat (if he had one) based on his hair "style" alone. lol

Later

The "Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle." He looks like a kid on that photo. Scary how such a sophisticated physics concept came from such a young fellow.

 

[ScottF]

Is it only me or can one really see how bonkers Bohr and Einstein were by their strange hats? Of course, they were geniuses so I do not mean this in a derogatory way.

Bohr does look pretty strange, but the hat itself is very typical '20s look. I like Einstein's hat

 

[mayserwegener]

Fermi looks good, maybe he was enough of any old romantic to keep himself well dressed?

Here another cool one of Fermi (under arrow) and some other Italian physicists.

 

[kaosharper1]

Does anyone here take western hats and rebash them like this here at the Lounge? I am a large guy (6'1", 250) and think a western hat bashed like a fedora would fit my stature better.

Here's a Wormser Texan that I rebashed to be like a Fedora. It originally had a cattleman's crease:

It has a 3" brim and a 6" crown. I later wetted it down a little on top to make the crease crisper.

 

[carouselvic]

1941 San Fran catalog & late 40's 3X model?






Stetson

 

[AlterEgo]

Wow--I had no idea my post would spawn such an interesting discussion.

To correct myself, "the fedora (Oppenheimer's) always pictured wearing" is, in fact, not always the same. Thanks to your photos and the ones I'm already familiar with, if you look carefully, you'll notice Oppenheimer's hat brims ranged from 2 1/2 to well over three inches, and the crown height and crown taper vary over the years, so he definitely did not always wear the same hat. However, they were all bashed similarly--and were consistently "well broken in" (that's one of the things I like about them).

When I said I did not want to modify an off-the-shelf hat, I meant have it re-blocked. Simple rebashing or changing the ribbon would be perfectly fine.

Four Akubras--Pastoralist, Campdraft, Squatter, and the aforementioned Bushman--are all contenders. Actually, I suspect my longing for a lid like the great Oppenheimer's is nothing more than psychological intellectualization--I'm just looking for an excuse to get a new hat!

 

[Woodfluter]

Some other physicists in hats.

Fermi

Heisenberg

Einstein and Bohr

Thanks Maysewegener!

I got a real charge out of seeing the pic of Fermi. I'm a little uncertain whether that's actually Heisenberg, however. Einstein's hat looks pretty general, in a relative sort of way. And I think Bohr's hat is very complementary!

(Not sure you all will appreciate my bad physics puns...)

Terrific pictures. Great job digging those up - never saw any of those before.

- Bill

P.S. My favorite quote from Bohr:
"For all frivolous truths, the opposite is untrue. But for all great truths, the opposite is also true."

 

[Matt Deckard]

Some other physicists in hats.

Einstein and Bohr

Their hats appear to give off that I don't care how it's worn appeal.

 

[feltfan]

I would trade almost anything I have for a hat like Bohr's.

The one Oppenheimer appears to wear in some of the pictures
is similar in some ways to the one Frank Lloyd Wright wore, but
shaped by the wearer differently. Very thin felt for a dress hat,
nothing like a Western felt. I'd suggest starting with a wide
brim Borsalino "Alessandria" style narrow ribbon hat. Vintage, of course.

 

[CitizenGenet]

Einstein and Bohr looks like they're wearing their hats because it's what they're expected to do, not because they really want to wear them.

Interesting thread - and I agree - Jim Parsons in a decade or so will be a dead-ringer for Oppenheimer.

 

[carldelo]

Maybe you could beat up a Stetson Dune and get the desired effect. At the least the ribbon looks right and the brim is quite wide (3 by 3-1/4 dimensional). You could coerce the teardrop into a telescope without too much trouble, I reckon.

A Camp Draft might do the trick, although with less brim.

 

[danofarlington]

I made this collage a couple of years ago, when considering the same thing (I goofed up and repeated one image, omitting another I had).

I refer to it as the Oppie crown with a Trinity brim and a Destroyer-of-Worlds ribbon treatment. I think you could make it from a Campdraft, perhaps an old one where the brim has lost its snap.

[Original thread: http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showpost.php?p=604483&postcount=64]

One thing you can say for sure about all his hats there, they are super low-crowned. You won't find that among contemporary hats. Even the vintage hats I've seen aren't very often so low-crowned. That plus a wide brim, plus the "beaten" look, seem to define his hats.

 

[Mobile Vulgus]

Hmmm. That photo almost seems to me that its the same hat in every picture in various stages of being beaten to death.

 

[CitizenGenet]

Oppenheimer's 1967 NYT Obituary

Up to 1954 Dr. Oppenheimer's big-brimmed brown porkpie hat, size 6 7/8, was a frequent (and telltale) sight in Washington and the capitals of Western Europe, where he traveled to lecture or consult. (The trademark hat was also in evidence at Princeton, N. J., where he headed the Institute for Advanced Study from 1947 to 1966.)

A photo of his hat from a 1948 edition of Physics Today

An excerpt from "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

[In 1937] Tall and gaunt, he [Dr. Siegfried Bernfeld] wore a distinctive porkpie hat, a felt hat with a low, flat top. Oppenheimer was deeply impressed - and soon took to wearing a porkpie hat like Bernfeld's.

And finally a video of Oppenheimer as himself, wearing the hat

 

[monbla256]

I just took my 30 yo Bushman and .....

I made this collage a couple of years ago, when considering the same thing (I goofed up and repeated one image, omitting another I had).

I refer to it as the Oppie crown with a Trinity brim and a Destroyer-of-Worlds ribbon treatment. I think you could make it from a Campdraft, perhaps an old one where the brim has lost its snap.

[Original thread: http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showpost.php?p=604483&postcount=64]

.... gave it a temporary re-bash and it went for the Oppie look like it was made for it!! I'd say get a Bushman and crease as Oppenheimer did his, wear it in EVERY rainstorm you can, let the brim dry sort of wonky and voila, an "Oppie" Robert would be proud of IMHO