Here are the detailed pictures of my newest 1940s Stetson. It's the only camel color Stetson I've personally seen. The brim is 2 3/4" with a triple stitch over welt. Crown is 5 3/4" open and 4 3/4" dented. The hatband is 1 1/2" copper color. There is some staining on the ribbon.
It's pretty much what I would expect from a Stetson fedora from the 40s. It's not as stiff as Open Road but more than firm enough to hold shape. Overall pretty excellent.
Oversimplified but just take a cloth measuring tape and measure around your head in the location where you wear the hat.I'm almost exactly 24",that converts to a 7 5/8.
That looks frustrating! What city are you in? Have you checked the list of custom hat makers on the Lounge? Some of those guys will even guide you through measurements over the phone, they are very customer friendly.
A lot of the other guys with bigger sized heads will have good advice for you, they have all been there!
Me, I wore a 6 7/8 patrol cap and now a 7 1/8 fedora, so I’ll let the other fellows give more specific advice
Daniel
Another winner, Bill. Sweet! Pity about the staining.
If you can deal with a hemp Milan, I'm thrilled with the black one I got from Peters Bros a few years back.So, the Hat Gods do not want me to have a black straw hat.
Last April, I attempted to order a black Tesi from Bencraft. It was kind of a last minute impulse buy for a trip to New Orleans. I paid extra for 2-day shipping, however, due to inclement weather in the northeast, the hat took a week to get delivered and did not make it before I left. This was nobody's fault but the weather, until Bencraft decided to not respond to any of my emails about getting my refund issued. I eventually had to just get my money back from a Paypal dispute, to which as far as I can tell, they never responded either.
This black Friday, I rolled the dice on a straw from Worth and Worth. Let me preface this by saying, that I work as a florist, so I'm sympathetic to folks who work with natural raw materials with an inherent amout of variability who have to try and make something match a customer's expectation from an online picture. It's exactly what I do, just in an entirely different medium. Therefore I'm also sympathetic to the idea that a maker should by duly compensated for their design ideas. So I'm not really balking at the price of the hat per se, even though one can find a Brisa weave from Cuenca of a similar quality for less than half of what W&W charges. There's value added in the hat with the dying and finishing....fair enough.
Then this showed up:
Lopsided crown, several stray weaves. One or two I'd be willing to forgive, but three on the same hat, including the one that sticks straight out from the crown is too much for me. Not at this price. Heck, I had a Panama Bob Cuenca that I paid $80 that had a nicer weave than this hat. So, I email W&W. They agree that the crown is lopsided and will accept an exchange/return. I asked them if they considered this a saleable hat and their response was along the lines of the imperfections were a part of the "weaver's hand" and 'unless you purchase a museum quality Montecristi" there is some level of imperfection. What I was really fishing for was at least a promise of "we'll look over your hat before we send it out," but could get no such assurance. When I told them I therefore was't comfortable buying a hat sight unseen, they somehow thought this meant I wanted them to choose a replacement hat for me.
So even though this hat was ostensibly damaged during shipping (could be due to the fact that their "hat travel case" is made of recycled plastic nylon cloth and wooden tongue depressors like this one from Hats in the Belfry which was itself thrown in a box with 2"-3" of clearance on the sides and top with no cushioning), I had to foot the bill to ship it back. Lucky me, I also live on the exact opposite side of the country, so this cost me $65 through UPS ground.
The hat is returned to them on the 18th. I emailed on the 19th to make sure everything was fine. Was told my refund would post "by the end of the day today." Weekend rolls around, no dice. So I filed a dispute with my credit card company. Lo and behold yesterday I get a call from W&W...it went to voicemail because I was driving, but they called to let me know they they needed my credit card information to manually process my refund. Apparently it took them a week to realize this? And not even a "Sorry it took us a while to process this..."
I really wanted to like my hat and I really wanted to have nice things to say about W&W, because I've given them shout-outs here as a Fouquet-alternative to those seeking that kind of look. But really was just disappointed in the hat, their response to my complaints, and their seeming inability to process my refund in a timely fashion.
What a beauty Max!I figured I ought to have at least one top hat...
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Or a monocle and he could sell peanuts. [emoji39]
