Willybob
A-List Customer
- Messages
- 367
I first fell in love with the fedora when I was just a wee lad watching G-men and George Reeves in the old black and whites beat up on guys whose fedoras never fell off. Like many of us, when Indiana Jones first came out, I fell head over heels for the shape of that hat and had to have one shaped just like it. But I was a child and did not understand the concepts of stretching and shaping. I learned fast that trying to stretch a round 7-1/4 to fit on my 7-3/8 long oval head made the brim do bad things. I didn’t evening know what a long oval was. But what’s more important was that ratios matter.
Back in the 90s I walked into a hat shop in San Francisco while on my quest for the perfect fedora shape and for a moment thought I had found exactly what I had been searching for. This store had a whole shelf of wide brim Borsolino Alesandrias. I picked one up and marveled over it. I noticed it was a 7-1/8. (Oh my kingdom for a small head). I searched and found a 7-3/8 and lo and behold…. it looked like a completely different hat. What was up with that?! I now know that if you like the look of a particular hat shape you see on someone else’s top knot and you’re going to look for a used one or shape your own, find out what size theirs is and then adjust the crown height and brim width up or down in the same ratio as the change in the hat size. Example; If theirs is a 7-1/4 and you are a 7-1/2, approx 5% difference, increase the crown height and brim width by 5% also to get the same overall ratio look.
My brother in laws family recently bought him a very nice Herbert Johnson Indy hat. He wanted that hat he had seen Harrison Ford wearing. He was soon disappointed. You see, Harrison Ford wears a 7-1/4, while my Brother in Law wears a 7-5/8. The crown looked too short and the brim looked too narrow. The vertical walls soon fell in, leaving him with a cone shaped brown hat more akin to something you would see worn on the Swiss alps with lederhosen. He tried to reshape it using my Hat Shaper mold but the steam seemed to make it worse. I was not impressed by the felt. The crown and brim on Harrison Ford’s hat looked great for a 7-1/4 hat but as the size increases so must the crown height and brim width.
Lesson learned. If you want that great straight, vertical wall, wide brim, tall crown look. Don’t count on getting it from an off the shelf hat from a company which mass produces them with the standard crown height and brim size for that particular model. The size of your noggin is crucial and must be the starting point for determining the proper crown height and brim width for that overall shape. This is where the professional hat make comes in. If you’re going to pay $400+ for a fedora, buy it from the guy who built it and avoid the bad ratio blues.
Back in the 90s I walked into a hat shop in San Francisco while on my quest for the perfect fedora shape and for a moment thought I had found exactly what I had been searching for. This store had a whole shelf of wide brim Borsolino Alesandrias. I picked one up and marveled over it. I noticed it was a 7-1/8. (Oh my kingdom for a small head). I searched and found a 7-3/8 and lo and behold…. it looked like a completely different hat. What was up with that?! I now know that if you like the look of a particular hat shape you see on someone else’s top knot and you’re going to look for a used one or shape your own, find out what size theirs is and then adjust the crown height and brim width up or down in the same ratio as the change in the hat size. Example; If theirs is a 7-1/4 and you are a 7-1/2, approx 5% difference, increase the crown height and brim width by 5% also to get the same overall ratio look.
My brother in laws family recently bought him a very nice Herbert Johnson Indy hat. He wanted that hat he had seen Harrison Ford wearing. He was soon disappointed. You see, Harrison Ford wears a 7-1/4, while my Brother in Law wears a 7-5/8. The crown looked too short and the brim looked too narrow. The vertical walls soon fell in, leaving him with a cone shaped brown hat more akin to something you would see worn on the Swiss alps with lederhosen. He tried to reshape it using my Hat Shaper mold but the steam seemed to make it worse. I was not impressed by the felt. The crown and brim on Harrison Ford’s hat looked great for a 7-1/4 hat but as the size increases so must the crown height and brim width.
Lesson learned. If you want that great straight, vertical wall, wide brim, tall crown look. Don’t count on getting it from an off the shelf hat from a company which mass produces them with the standard crown height and brim size for that particular model. The size of your noggin is crucial and must be the starting point for determining the proper crown height and brim width for that overall shape. This is where the professional hat make comes in. If you’re going to pay $400+ for a fedora, buy it from the guy who built it and avoid the bad ratio blues.
