Mon b?©b?©!

My Biltmore has returned from the haberdasher! You may recall my previous thread asking for advice about ribbon colour. In the end I chose black because he didn't have many options and black works for all occasions. I also replaced it with a 22 ligne instead of the 19 and had the hat rebashed in a teardrop shape.

Here he is!





By the by, does anyone have information about older Biltmores? The brim of this one is 2 3/8" and none of the models I've seen on sale online fit that dimension.

looks great!

A tremendous hat that looks great on you. I have never seen a vintage Biltmore down here, but I sure like that one. Just for my information, could you post a before picture in this thread?

regards,

RB

Beautiful. :eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap

Thanks, Rick!

Here are the "before" photos:





The big differences are the new, wider ribbon, the restored colour of the hat (after cleaning), and a proper bashing.

Alon,

Sorry that I don't have any Biltmore information to offer, but that hat looks great on you. The dimensions work very well.

That's a gorgeous lid!!!!

Who is your haberdasher? I visited one place in TO where the proprietor was so clearly weary of teenage arseholes that he basically barred my entrance - stood at one side of the doorway with his arm blocking the entrance: "can i help you . . . ahem . . . Sir?"



bk

Thanks for the compliments, everyone. I can't wait for the right occasion to sport it, it's just that it feels like too formal a hat to wear to school and out of a suit.

Baron Kurtz, I bought the hat from Rotman's Hats & Haberdashery on Spadina Avenue, in the heart of Chinatown. I had it cleaned and touched up at The Hatter on Avenue Road.

Great looking lid.:eusa_clap :eusa_clap

Very nice indeed! A big improvement to a sweet hat and it looks great on you!

Great hat! and fine work with renovation; I'd like to see more involved photos
of this hat in particular, and for a specific reason: the pricing of "big name" hats is going through the roof (again), and we are now looking at the second strata of hats fo fill the gap left by Borsalino, Stetson, et.al. Biltmore, Adams, Lee, and some of the others on the listing of hatters made just a little while ago, will help us understand and further appreciate the merits of the everyday hat. To see a Biltmore in distress, and then brought back to life in what we consider proper fashion is a terrific way of visually cataloging that second tier of hatmaking, and gives us an opportunity to buy a good hat at a reasonable price-without having to think about "gee, it's a shame it wasn't a ..."
I happen to like a lot of the off-name hats- they fit differently, have a different cant to them than Stetson's & Borsa's, and kinda feel more "American" to rescue an oddball hat made here, not in Japan or Italy-no offence intended, so don't take any, and by buying an off-the-A-list hat,
might have an opportunity to research that individual mfg., just to help put the pieces of the puzzle of American history as it was lived together. [huh]