trilby?

[budward]

Can anyone offer a view as to what a trilby is? Best I can tell, it's what otherwise is a fedora, but with a 2 1/4 inch brim. If that's right, why would a fedora with a 2 1/4 inch brim have its own special name?

 

[Mycroft]

A tribly is another name for a fedora in England and Common Wealth Contries. We have been talking about this early today: http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?p=25776#post25776

 

[matei]

Ha ha - funny world...

My colleagues here use the name trilby rather than fedora. I just had this discussion with someone yesterday.

 

[gandydancer]

In England from what I have read I think a fedora and a trilby are the same thing. In the US what we called a trilby was the fedora shaped tweed cloth hat like you see in so many old British movies.

These days people seem to call any soft felt hat a fedora, but in the old days it had to have a particular shaped crown and a snapbrim to be a fedora. The generic term for soft felts was 'slouch hat' rather than fedora.

 

[Matt Deckard]

I think today a Trilby is associated with a fedora with a very tapered crown, a short brim and a narrow ribbon. Mostly worn by aristocratic brits or cardigan clad ice truck drivers who don't get their modern hats reblocked when they shrink.

Opinion/
It's a fedora, though the brit hatters like to differentiate between fedora and trilby so they can sell the trilby with it's own UK identity.

 

[BellyTank]

I'm quite sure that the word Fedora went out of favour in the UK a long while back and has only come back into the vernacular in recent years- those Fedora style hats, what we would call a Fedora were referred to as a Trilby. I think Trilby has come to describe a more casual or country hat but now it's just about anything it wants to be- now we think of the Trilby as the Tweed cloth variety.
I think the vintage clothing field of interest has revived the use of the word Fedora in the UK.

That's what I think...

BT.

 

[deMelo]

Funny thing... I've always favored the narrower brims... Never really associated those with lack or character or anything alike, but as a matter of fact I've seen many a chap despise the good old trilbies... Too bad.

I think they're quite stylish these days, at least around here.

Cheers, excellent forum. Just joined in and did my job as an undertaker with trilby topics

 

[fedoracentric]

That is an argument we've had endlessly here.

The origin of the word "Trilby" doesn't limit it to any particular brim width.

Still, for many in the USA trilby only refers to stingy brims, and the 2 inch and less brims, at that. However, in the UK trilby refers to about any fedora and is used more interchangeably there than it is in the US.

So, the short answer is that trilby means fedora, but the long answer is it depends on where you are and how you use it.

With as much argument as we've seen over the question here on the site, I'd get used to just imagining that trilby is just another word for fedora and has no minutely specific meaning past that.

If you mean stingy brim... say that.

Heck, we even recently had an argument with some here claiming that a porkpie looks like a regular, full sized Stetson Open Road hat, so... sometimes it's hard to nail things down around here!
[huh][huh]

 

[ManofKent]

Yes effectively in the UK trilby = fedora. Lock & co. define a trilby as having a shorter brim that snaps down at the front and rises at the rear, but if you read early 20th century literature you'll come across 'broad brimmed trilby' used to describe hats. The idea that trilbies can only be short brimmed seems quite a modern one.

 

[fedoracentric]

The idea that trilbies can only be short brimmed seems quite a modern one.

More specifically I think it may be an American notion. Never in my life did I ever associate the word trilby with a wide brimmed hat until I started reading this site and found that Brits used the word differently. It always meant the ultimate in stingy brims to me. 2 inches and less.