Indy look a

[Vampyre Master]

hey guys I have an Indy brown felt fedora should it tip up at the back or be down
Vampyre

 

[djd]

Down at the back

 

[Vampyre Master]

thank you
V

 

[mercuryfelt76]

That depends which film and which scene. In Raiders in the bar in Nepal if has quite a snap to the brim and a swoop cos the hat is turned. But in Cairo the brim is down all the way. In Last Crusade the hat is very stylish and snapped up. In Temple of Doom it's flat.

 

[Saint-Just]

Is it just my eyes or is there more than one colour too?

 

[jlee562]

Is it just my eyes or is there more than one colour too?

There were multiple hats from multiple makers during the course of the franchise. So, yes.

 

[djd]

There are a couple of grey ones that he travels in. You see a grey on the seaplane in raiders and on the Washington steps at the end. There's a lighter grey on the train in crystal skull. All the others are pretty much the same shade of brown

 

[mercuryfelt76]

There were dozens of hats made for the first film when Herbert Johnson made the hat. I think it's just filters and lighting which makes them appear different colours from scene to scene. But it's a different hat entirely each film.

 

[djd]

You're not saying there isn't a grey hat in raiders are you??

I don't know about dozens. In terms of the ones worn by Ford a shot by shot comparison doesn't suggest that many... Obviously a few more for the stuntmen

Unless you know otherwise I'm pretty sure that HJ made the hats for the first three? I know there's supposed to be a Stetson in temple at some point but I understood the second two films to feature HJs poet model. The first film is something else....

 

[jlee562]

HJ made the hats, but the felt and the block changed...most obviously between Raiders and Temple. Adventurebilt of course made the hats for Crystal Skull.

 

[mercuryfelt76]

You're not saying there isn't a grey hat in raiders are you??

Ha ha ha!

When I said dozens of hats, I did once go and see Richard Swales (who was the hat expert asked to make the original hat R.I.P.) and he said there were loads of hats for stuntmen as well but only a few featured in the films.

 

[djd]

That sounds about right ;-) must have been an interesting guy to talk to Indy aside.

I've seen some very convincing shot by shot analysis on the Raiders hat which suggests there may have been as few as two hero hats used. Certainly no less than two though.

 

[Edward]

There are a couple of grey ones that he travels in. You see a grey on the seaplane in raiders and on the Washington steps at the end. There's a lighter grey on the train in crystal skull. All the others are pretty much the same shade of brown

The development of Jones' wardrobe across the first two films, Raiders and Temple (the latter technically a prequel rather than a sequel, being set a year earlier than the former), is interesting, as what was initially mere costume had become iconic by the time they cane to make the second. In Raiders, it seems the brown hat is worn in the field, while the grey is the city hat. It was, however, (rather inevitably) the adventuring gear that caught the public's imagination, and so by Temple the brown hat was iconic to the point that it was the only one we see him wearing for the rest of the trilogy. I'm sure there was an intentional symbolism of the brown hat representing adventure and freedom when he is so quick to don it before he jumps out the window in Crusade. Oh.... and there was also the snatching it from under the dropping stone door in Temple... In Crystal Skull, I notice that the grey hat appears when he is headed away to a new post in Europe, something which is presented almost as a 'quiet retirement' for him. Then Mutt appears, the grey hat is lost, the adventure is back on and out comes the brown again....which we also see in the closing wedding scene he is not ready to give up just yet. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it does all seem quite deliberate to me.

 

[djd]

You may well be right. It's a good thought anyway

It's another costuming ****-up in Crystal Skull that they put him in a lighter grey hat than the darker grey raiders one. Those light colours (his suit as well) do nothing for a man as grey as he is. A darker hat and a darker suit would have looked far better IMHO

 

[Edward]

I rather liked what they had him in. If it makes him look older (I'll have to go back and rewatch that), it may have been deliberate too. I loved how they really did have him written and played as a man twenty years older than when we'd last seen him.

 

[jlee562]

The grey train hat from KOTCS is one of my favorite hats in the series.

Steve has said that Bernie (Ford's costume designer) had actually requested "Oxford Grey," and that the hat seen in the film was actually a prototype.

 

[djd]

I think it's a lovely hat jlee - just would have preferred a darker one on him. The whole suit made him lpoked washed out I thought.

In fact (and now you've got me started ), just about every costuming choice in the film was poor IMO. His leather jacket looked too big for him which made him look old and skinny (although he wasn't) and it looked like a new jacket made of a predistressed hide rather than a genuinely old and battered one as in raiders and temple.... The fedora was beautifully made but again looked rather new and still unlike the nice floppy rabbit version in raiders. Bernie did a poor job in making his man look good I thought . Rant over

 

[mercuryfelt76]

Totally agree, the whole production looked rushed. The excessive use of dust on the hat, to me, seemed to be their attempt to age the beaver felt... unsuccessfully.

 

[Not-Bogart13]

To bring this back to the original question... MOST of the time, Indy's hat brim is up in the back, but the flange is not dramatic. I find a good way to get that small upward curl is to steam or wet the brim while up and coax the curl by hand until it's only around the edge in back, rather than the more common curves we see on fedoras. But don't do that to the sides. Leave the full curl in for them.

 

[djd]

To me ( and it's probably only me!), the Cairo hat is the archetypal Indy hat with it's rear downward. The last crusade hat - looks too much like a cowboy hat for my taste