If you're looking for light weight it won't be a felt. I've never seen a homburg made of light weight felt, which is not to say they could not be out there, only that I've never seen one. Bowlers were sometimes produced as light weight and advertised as such, like this Rehfus Zephyr (below), but I've never seen a homburg advertised the same way.
I don't recall if I've seen a Hommie Panama or not from Mike, but I spoke to him before I went to Ecuador last December about possibly bringing him some tall crown/wide brim hat bodies to make western Panama hats with and although he didn't have a specific block for the style he assured me he could do it.
Not necessarily Homburgs, but here's some brim curl Mike applied to a couple Panama hats.
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Can you please tell me how to tell the difference between silk and melusine?It's most likely a Silk Top Hat (defintely not Beaver but could be Melusine). Tremel was located in Herford, Germany. I am not sure when they went out of business but I will do some more research. There are some great photos from this book (see below).
"Herford zwischen 1900 und 1960" By Eris Valentowicz.
"After the death of the founder August Tremel in 1924, his sons Adolf and August took over the hat factory and built a new building in 1927 at the same location. Above the hat shop, here around 1930, was the hat maker's workshop."
"For the production of a folding cylinder "Chapeau claque", a basic form, the galette, was first made.This photo from the 1950s shows a Tremel hatter holding two Galettes in his hands.The plush was mounted on the godet during the next step."
One of the pages is missing from the preview but you can see the rest of entry here. Some really great photos!
https://books.google.com/books?id=m...Nd8KHS0ZDegQ6AEwC3oECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=true
When you have time could you please post this in the Germany and Austrian thread?
https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/german-austrian-hutmachers.32103/page-366
Update: I found some more from the book "Herford zwischen 1900 und 1960"
By Eris Valentowicz. They went out of business sometime in the 1960s.
"While hats and folding cylinders were made in the Tremel hat factory in Llibberstraße from 1869 until the 1960s"
Looks like it was applied in sheets like a Silk Top Hat. The Silk would probably be finer / smoother plus more gloss. I tend to think it's Silk Plush.
O yes. Fléchet is a French maker. They did special finishes very well. There are several examples of Flëchet hats in the French makers thread. I believe there was an American license for the brand at one point. Your hat seems to be for the French market by the original maker though.
