Your Hat Likes it Rough

[shortbow]

100% integrator. My hat is a part of me, and I'm pretty well used myself. Like to think of it as character. A hat with "character" is a must.

 

[Akubra Man]

I like the idea of being an integrator and I try to live that way but sometimes I get a little uptight about my hats. It is part of growing. I started out real careful and obsessive and over the years have learned to relax a whole lot and just wear hats without thinking to much about them. Just a part of my wardrobe.

I love that hat harpplayergene

 

[EVEN-STEVEN]

My friend's grandfather was a well-to-do Texan back in the 30s and 40s. He bought a new Cadillac every year. He couldn't live with the pressure of avoiding that first scratch or dent on his beautiful, shiney, new Caddy, so immediately after purchasing the car he would drive off the lot, and then off the road into a grove of mesquite trees where he would deliberately distress the pristine paint job by driving through the scratchy, thorny brush. He did this every year - with every new car he bought.

This story was an inspiration to me. So whenever I get a new fedora, I put in on my head, get into my car and drive through some high chaparral. With the windows up, of course. I don't want my new fedora to get dusty.

I have 24 lids. I pamper about 10 of them.

Happy Turkey Day, everyone! Gobble, Gobble!

 

[Not-Bogart13]

I'm an Integrator, but my ordinary routine makes it look like I'm a Careful. My stuff just doesn't tend to get messed up and rumpled (or "distressed" as the Indy crowd might say), because my natural way of living doesn't cause it happen.

Basically, everything I own ends up well taken care of. Even my "beaters" and the clothes I use for dirty work look better cared for than your average Joe's. Yes, I treat my hats with care... like everything else I wear. And once I get a hat to look the way I like, I stop playing with it.

 

[KatintheHat]

They all look pristine to start. Just be careful w/ the ones older than you are.

 

[KeyGrip]

Started out careful and transitioned into integrator when I learned just how durable my hat (Akubra Sydney) really was.

 

[carter]

Integrating a hat is like integrating your clothing.

Full-On Integrator with way too many hats. I'm not particulary careful with my hats in the house. There are hats hanging, lying, and stacked everywhere. I don't invite disastor in the kitchen either. I pick them up by just about any surface but mostly by the crown. I lay them down anywhere that's clean and handy. They constantly get bumped on the doorframe of the car. My hats are well used but not abused. A lot like my shoes. And, like my shoes, they enjoy regular cleaning, a good brushing, and restoration if needed.

I do have a few hats that are not worn because they don't fit me. They were purchased for rarity as much as anything. So you won't see me wearing a clear nutria derby or a clear beaver western or a few others. But you would if they were my size.

 

[Shel]

I'm A Hybrid

"Carefulgrator" is the word. My less than favorites will take abuse without it troubling me at all, while my favorites are treated as though they were special friends. Sad, but true!

 

[Woodfluter]

Well, depends. I look at tools, clothes, hats all the same, in a way. They're there to serve a purpose. No good lying around unused. But I want them to last.

So apart from dress items (whose sole purpose is to look good), I go for stuff that is durable, use them with reasonable care to forestall regret ("egad, couldn't I have taken a moment to wipe that grease off my hands before I grabbed the hat!") and expect them to take care of me. I don't own any fedora or western hat that I wouldn't wear in a rainstorm, or on a walk in the woods or mountains, and don't have much interest in those that wouldn't handle that sort of use.

I think the really good ones thrive on that! Great question/thread, Scotrace!

- Bill

 

[MattJH]

Integrator.

I can't stand fuss. If I fussed over my hats, I wouldn't wear them, honestly.

 

[BobC]

The question you ask, Scotrace, is an interesting one and this thread an interesting read. You have prompted me to think, and that can't be harmful.

I am careful with my hats. Oh, I wear my hats and enjoy them, but I am also careful about where and when I wear them because some of them stepped out of the past and into my closet. I have several vintage hats. I am careful with these because they are pieces of our history for me to appreciate and preserve and to eventually pass on to someone else who will do the same.

I also have one custom hat, soon to be more. I am careful with these hats because someone saw them with their mind's eye and created them from an ugly cone of felt for me to wear. And I do wear them and enjoy them, but I am careful about how they are treated when I wear them.

Lastly, I have some off the shelf hats, Akubras mostly. These are the ones I wear most often because if they are damaged they can be replaced easily and at the least expense. I am careful with these hats as well, but I am less concerned about these.

 

[ScionPI2005]

I used to fall into the "babying" category. That was back when I was relatively new to fedoras, and figured they were much more fragile than baseball caps. That may have had something to do with the fact that I only owned one wool cheapie fedora at the time...certainly nothing of superior quality. I babied my first few hats; always watched the weather and if there were any clouds in the sky that looked to be threatening rain, I'd leave the hat at home.

I'm a lot more relaxed about fedora wearing now. I understand that a quality felt fedora can handle the rain, and those little marks and pinches to the bash only add character. Sure, I still cringe a little when I see my hat is going to get wet, but I try not to worry about it too much anymore. Ironically, lately, if it looks to be raining, I'll reach for my VS custom, the most expensive hat in my fleet. That's because I know and trust that my VS was designed to be worn, and it can handle the rain.

 

[ken100]

Should be worn

I love my hats, I also love my clothes, I love my tux, but when I wear it I dont want it to look like I just bought it for a special event, I want to look like it is a part of my normal wardrobe. Same with my hats, I dont want to look like my mother said today is for your Sunday best, I like it to look like its a comfotable piece of attire, which it is. Hats is hats is hats.
Ken

 

[cookie]

Totally sensible question, and glad you asked it.

Some folks advise that handling a hat should be done carefully with both hands, one on each side of the brim.

Here's why (then again, I LIKE this hat this way):

Yeah but if you treated your blue Trionfo Borsalino like that you would already be dead right? [huh]

 

[ken100]

Yeah

Hey Cookie, Im with you, some things just need to looked after! PS. love your avatar, Tamara De lempika is just to cool for school!
Ken

 

[RobFedoraField]

in with everyone else

when I got my full brim hat it was a leather hirschel and I tried, but couldn't kill that thing.

when I got my first fur felt, I babied it to the point where I didn't wear it much at all then it eventually ended up in storage.

once I decided to wear hats again, I'm a firm believer they need to be functional, but taken care of, like anything else of mine.

I've ordered two akubras so I can put my first hat back on the shelf to be treated with a little more respect. I'd like to someday be the owner of a vintage hat that was always mine.

is 30 yrs still the earmark to be called "vintage"?

 

[duggap]

NO, NO I am the careful type. Having six of Art's babies, I would not think of grabbing them by the crown. Art would come all the way to Tennessee and put a whopping on me. But looking at the hats Art has made me, why in the world would I want to hurt one of those special beauties. Anyway, I can't afford a replacement.:eusa_clap

 

[Mr. Paladin]

I really enjoy my hats but I find myself with two categories of them. My western hats see use in rain or shine but since I am fairly new to fedoras and the like, I have noted I tend to be much more careful with them. I guess that comes from growing up on a ranch where a hat was an essential item of clothing just like jeans, you had to have it and it got heavy use all year around, however the fedoras and my homburg are still considered "dress hats only" in my mind. I think the analogy earlier of a first dent in a new car will apply to them as well however; once I ding up one of them it and the others will hopefully become just like my westerns, familiar with use and comfortable with their imperfections.

 

[hatflick1]

"Treasured" Fedora

I purchased a pretty salty Stetson years back. Broken in hardly describes it. Not even a leather sweatband, rather cloth someone had hand-sewn around the oval opening. I have worn it for gardening, errands, hiking, walking the beach. It's been dropped on almost any surface know to man, blown across the street, snared by a low hanging branch, squashed in the trunk by a used tire and sat on.
My point? In this case of this fedora, it's approaching my notion of the ideal hat as shown below.
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare/treasure-sierra/47.11-warner.jpg

 

[HarpPlayerGene]

Yeah but if you treated your blue Trionfo Borsalino like that you would already be dead right? [huh]

lol lol lol

That's sooo true. I must admit, the blue Borso' is one hat that I rarely wear even though I love it. Last night I considered wearing it to a family Thanksgiving dinner gathering. It would have gone great with what I was wearing. Then I backed out. What if one of the kids gets ahold of it? What if gravy gets on it? What if....?

I wore one of my Whippets. Not that I don't value my old Whippets a lot, cause I do, but that shows you how much more protective I am about that blue Trinonfo.