A Hat Renaissance?

[charlie farley]

Thing is, if fedoras become commonplace, those compliments will disappear.

I would love to see a return to almost every man wearing good hats again but I don't think the compliments would entirely disappear, however I still get compliments on my suits.A hat renaissance would be the best thing to happen for ages IMHO.

 

[John in Covina]

While it is kind of fun to be the lone rebel in most situations as the only guy with a fedora or "proper" hat, but then it's nice to be amongst people with that same interest just like here on the Lounge.

If feodras were to become more popular, like a world wide boom of fedoras, their prices would go up for the good better and best ones and mediocre to very poorly made ones would explode onto the market seeking to grab the money from those with the demand. Good basic materials would become scarce driving prices even higher. If enough attention was brought to bare on the spiraling prices, Peta would protest the use of animal furs and the posibility of legislation making it more difficult to get fur felts could come up.
Possibly driving all hat making offshore.

There would be an eventual collapse as the trend is seen as a fad and it fades, During the shake out the bad sources would begin to drop like flies and the unsold inventory would plummet in price. The good better and best makers might have a long rough time and some of them might drop out too. Then things will settle down and overall there will be some improvements that came to the market that will remain and it will actually be better for the fedora buyers for variety and selection than before the boom, but prices will still be higher than before for the good stuff. There will be those for whom it was not a fad and the knowledgeble pool of wearers will be bigger and perhaps very loyal wearers.

(That was the scenario of the Cigar Boom in the late eighties. Limited production of a hand made product.)

If things went real nuts and Peta won the day nationally we could find a ban on all fur and fur felt hats would be included. People that already had them would be told to registrer their hats and furs. Permits would be issued at enormous costs to the owners and it would become a field of clothing only for the rich. Confiscation raids take place and people are paid to turn in family and friends. Millions are made in digitally taking all hats and furs out of old movies. Then they take on the dreaded dairy industry....

 

[Charlz]

These things are cycles. Although a resurgence in fedoras is nice for economic reasons it also opens the fedora up for re-interpretation by the miscreants that call themselves "designers". Once the "designers" get a hold (and they have already) of fedoras you will see abominations, genetic freaks, hideous deformations of the classic fedora that would make John B. Stetson roll in his grave if he is not already spinning below the sod. Oh, the tartan patterns and glow-in-the dark bands, the cheetah skin prints, oh god get these visions out of my head. Let us not open these flood gates and let not the Rive Gauche, and the campy, villianous swine gorge themselves on our sacred hat and then leave it there to be mocked as the fad fades on late night TV talk shows.

AND YET!!....... A cheaper quality felt could bribe me from my deeper convictions. I am so ashamed.

 

[ortega76]

Would I like to see fedoras and the like more commonplace?

Would I like to see it as a "fad", no. We are certainly seeing some elements of fad in the prevalence of awful, screen-printed, skull-adorned cloth fedoras found in Hot Topic and Wal-Mart. This would do little except drive up prices in the short term and cause a lot of irritation among true devotees.

Would I like to see more people relaize the beauty, elegance and functionality of a hat? Yes. There are plenty of styles, details and the like to allow for a broad range of expression. Even among has with similar characteristics, details can really show differences in personality.

 

[Edward]

I see a lot more kids wearing hats these days. Cheap, cloth Hot Topic type numbers, yes, but if that's what gets them started.... Few jump into anything new, be it playing a musical instrument, taking up windsurfing, or a particular style of dressing, with the best and/or the mot expensive right from the off. I should expect that at least some of those kids in hats we might look down on today will be the next generation of 'real' Fedora wearers.

I would like to see more people wearing hats about. Preferably not as a mainstream fashion trend, but more as something solid, the return of a good basic, as divorced from disposable fashion as the plain black T shirt. The one thing that would concern me, as others have raised, would be whether this might lead to more awareness and therefore more controversy over fur felt. I don't want to reopen debates that have been done to death in these parts, but suffice it to say that while I am comfortable that fur felt hats do not violate my own ethical stance (so long as the rest of the animal is not wasted and it is not slaughtered cruelly), I realise that this could become a problem with those who oppose all forms of animal product being used.

ETA: Perhaps hats being more commonplace might also reduce the occasional insults. I have only once, that I recall, been subject to a particular vicious verbal comment from a by-passer in the street. A middle aged man a week or two ago hissed at me that I was an unclean, fornicating Jew and that I should go forth and multiply. Or words to that general effect, anyhow. I actually didn't twig it was aimed at me until a couple of minutes later when I reached up to move the brim of my Akubra Federation. I guess to that guy a high crown hat said "Jew hat." [huh] It's the sheer bigotry implied in such a comment that shocked me.... Perhaps I had my own stereotypes challenged too, as I subconciously expect to see a white, neo-Nazi type making those sorts of remarks, while this guy was Asian. [huh] I did find myself wondering whether, if hats were more commonplace, this sort of thing would disappear. Unfortunately, the underlying bigotry would no doubt remain.

 

[Red McCutcheon]

s

Ortega,

Good point about the distinctiveness of each individual hat. One of the criticisms leveled at hat wearing, at least during the Golden Age, was that it bespoke a lack of imagination, and subjugation to mind-numbing conformity (as if there is anything inherently wrong with conformity, mark you!). This criticism, of course, is reductive in the extreme and for the very reason you mentioned. Hence, hats really are not cookie-cutter items and each individual wears them differently according to his unique personality. Advocates of nose rings, tie-dyes, tattoos and bodily filth seemingly cannot fathom this.

Edward,

What's this about hat-wearing and Jews? Perhaps this is common knowledge among those with more hat knowledge than I, but I've never heard of this association.

 

[WildCelt]

Red, is your avatar from The Man Who Would Be King?

 

[KeyGrip]

Look for pictures of Orthodox Jews and it will all be clear. I am not familiar with the specifics of the religion, but I know that they maintain a very formal and subdued manner of dress and that wide-brimmed black hats are a part of that. Sometimes those hats are fedoras. I've had two very different people in two very different cities ask me if I was Jewish based, I would assume, on my hat, beard, and dark suitcoat.

 

[Lefty]

There are sooo many threads on hats and religion.

 

[Red McCutcheon]

s

WC,

Yep. That's Connery.


KG,

I know that Hasidic Jews wear hats, but I thought they tended to be bowlers, derbys and homburgs rather than fedoras. Perhaps I'm wrong on that.

 

[Lefty]

Please use the search function. Just typing in the word Jewish and selecting Hats as the forum to search, I got these
http://thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=31624&highlight=jewish
http://thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=18373&highlight=jewish
http://thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=3032&highlight=jewish

 

[ortega76]

Ortega,

Good point about the distinctiveness of each individual hat. One of the criticisms leveled at hat wearing, at least during the Golden Age, was that it bespoke a lack of imagination, and subjugation to mind-numbing conformity (as if there is anything inherently wrong with conformity, mark you!). This criticism, of course, is reductive in the extreme and for the very reason you mentioned. Hence, hats really are not cookie-cutter items and each individual wears them differently according to his unique personality. Advocates of nose rings, tie-dyes, tattoos and bodily filth seemingly cannot fathom this.

It is the same argument among men who dislike ties. The same men who tend to show their individuality by buying shirts in white, off-white and blue to wear with their pleated khakis in some sad corporate uniform. And not all afficianados of tattoos or body piercings are dirty or like tie-dye- some of us just see it as another way to make oneself beautiful. Style, like God, is in the details!

 

[WildCelt]

Yep. That's Connery.

I just saw that movie for the first time on Tuesday (in my British Cultural History class) and the picture just jumped out at me. Connery's just plain cool as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Red McCutcheon]

x

And Connery knows how to sport a lid. Check out Dr. No and From Russia with Love for further evidence of that, if you haven't already.

 

[ortega76]

I recently moved back to the south suburbs of Chicago after nearly 6 years in Central Illinois. When I lived downstate, I saw a little of everything (college town, y'know) from college kids wearing funky vintage to aging hippies in pink hair. A few days ago, I visited a mall hear in the south suburbs.

Once I got past a cluster of urban clothiers, I was intrigued to find a local clothier with a very prominent display of fedoras and homburgs. It was a large enough store that it took up two smaller stores next to each other. It was definitely geared toward an urban crowd but "dressier". Lots of 4, 5 and 6 button suits. Lots of bizarrely colored faux-alligator shoes.

But the hats caught my eye. Hats everywhere. Most were color variants of the same 4-5 styles but there were stacks of hats! As I looked, I found they were all stiff wool pieces, and a bit pricey at that. The salesman asked if I saw anything I liked (I do have a thing for Stacy Adams shoes and Deco-inspired ties) and liked the black pork pie I was wearing. We chatted for a bit about hats. He told me they were getting to be big sellers for him.

I did see several guys wearing those lids out and about. It gave me some hope that some might graduate from a stiff wool jobber to a nice felt lid. I have been seeing fedoras on some of the younger cats out where I live. That's a step in the right direction!

 

[rrog]

Please use the search function. Just typing in the word Jewish and selecting Hats as the forum to search, I got these...

Wow. I guess it just goes to show that I really know very little about hats (never claimed to), but I would never have imagined that fedoras and Jewish people were so closely associated with one another. And I'm even more surprised to hear about someone getting dressed down just for being Jewish and wearing a hat too. If ignorance is bliss, then I must be awfully blissful.

I guess someone could therefore say that since I'm from the Appalachian region of East Tennessee, that automatically means I'm a stupid hillbilly who carries my two front teeth in my shirt pocket, I have to shoo the chickens out of my bed before I hit the hay, my sister is also my second cousin and I have to go out on the front porch to get a snack out of the fridge. If that's how someone wants to categorize me because of my heritage, then I take offense to that categorization... because I actually only meet two of the above-mentioned stereotypes! lol (sometimes I crack myself up)

rrog


BTW, don't flame me on this. This is not directed at anyone's remarks here on TFL. It's more of a commentary about someone getting cursed for wearing a hat and being Jewish. I mean, say all you want about how funny someone looks in a hat. But their religion or heritage shouldn't even be a factor.

 

[rrog]

Due to environmental restrictions, the new society may not be as strong as the old society. Further, our rough edges, even with welting or binding, will never be held to society as they once were, when a common purpose fused us to one another.

However, a cultural re-block could help to bring back some of society's form and bash a little character into everyone's crown.

I'm brimming with excitement about it.

Knot!

A bow, and a heart-felt tip of the top.

Very clever wording Lefty. I'm surprised nobody has complimented you on that yet. :eusa_clap

rrog

 

[theprofessor]

I'm a Baptist minister here in Savannah, GA, and i caught the hat bug a year or so ago - after wanting a "good" hat for quite a while. Now and then i'll see a hat guy, but usually it's just a cheap wool fedora you can pick up anywhere. I have a fed deluxe, and an adventurebilt that i've begun wearing to church and on my rounds to hospitals and such. it was humbling when one day in the hospital elevator an older, yet quite distinguished lady complemented my hat and said, "I really appreciate a man who wears a proper hat - it's something I miss in this day and time." It occurred to me that when wearing a hat I do tend to dress nicer, behave in a gentile manner, and carry myself in a proper way. And I've discovered that when I adhere to the coat and tie mores of my profession (which i used to find stuffy) people tend to treat me with more dignity and respect than when wearing jeans and a ball cap - which means they'll listen more closely to what I have to say.

I guess a proper hat and the proper clothes never go out of style, and the distinguished gentleman concept is not dead after all. And if that sets me apart from my contemporaries, so be it.

 

[RobFedoraField]

generally speaking I agree. the old addage "dress for the job" seems to hold true.

A lot of you hope that the young adults wearing the justin timberlake wannabe stingies made of crazy stuff like purple and pink plaids are really just attempting to be trend setters. I doubt if any of these people will ever graduate to a real hat. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with stingies per say, but I've always felt a hat should be 1) functional then 2) stylish.

Most of the people I've talked to here are "hat" people, we're kind of a different breed. Styles have changed over the last 200 years, but there are some styles that will maintain the test of time, not be based on a current trend. but trends to come back every once in a while. wow I'm rambling....

I've only seen a handful of people wearing hats in the Rochester, NY area. one was a well distinguished African American male, the others were people wearing outback style hats because it was snowing. Oddly enough, when I was in the lower part of Canada, I saw more real hats in a weekend that I did the last year put together in Rochester.

The only compliments I've received are along the same lines as everyone else, my dad used to have a hat like that, or I remember the days when men wore hats, etc. I think they are more symbolic of a different era, almost a simpler time where we weren't submersed into electronics, so on and so forth.

ok, who wants the soap box next?

 

[rrog]

+1 to both of you, theprofessor and RobFedoraField. Welcome to the lounge Rob. And I think you'll find that the soap box gets passed around from time to time around here.

(And I also think you'll find there are some real fans of the stingies here on TFL)

rrog