Of all the hats principally worn by men, the most styliish and versatile is the fedora, a soft felt hat with a straight-up crown that is creased down the center and pinched on either side of the front or softly dimpled on both sides toward the middle. The brim is generous and flexible, so it can easily be turned up or down at any point round its circumference. The crown is usually trimmed with a wide grosgrain ribbon band and a bow of one kind of another, typically in a contrasting color to the felt. The brim may be left with a raw edge, a self-fold of felt that is lapped back on itself, or it may be trimmed with a narrow border of grosgrain ribbon that matches the band. The fedora has an unmistakable air of sophistication about it that makes it appropriate for town, country and sporting events. It's one of the few hats that can go anywhere; and if beautifully made,
people will stop you on the street and want to know where you got it.
The word fedora comes from the title of an 1882 play by Victorien Sardou, which was written for Sarah Bernhardt. The famous actress played the role of Princess Fedora, and she wore a hat which we would recognize as a fedora. The style of the hat became a fashion favored by women starting in the 1890s and lasting until 1920, at which point men appropriated the style for themselves. The hat was initially considered an upper-class clothing accessory. Its popularity soared, and it eventually eclipsed the somewhat similar but much stiffer Homburg by the 1930s. It was popular in cities for its stylishness and ability to protect the wearer's head from the wind and the weather.
By the middle of the century, hats had fallen into disfavor. People didn't want to wear them and for good reason, not only were the stingy brim styles uncommonly ugly but it was also impossible to get in or out of a car without knocking off your hat. To hell with 'em! Go bareheaded and find yourself a good hair stylist.
To make matters worse, the once mighty hat industry had taken a downturn and was doomed to fail. Factory after factory closed and with them went the milliners and the hat shops. The arbiters of fashion declared hats dead dead dead, not least the fedora. To paraphrase Sam Clemens, news of the death of the fedora has been premature and greatly exaggerated.
Wonderful hats began to show up in period movies as well as BBC mini-series aired on television. Audiences and viewers wanted to know who had made those beautiful hats and where they could get them. The costume designers had saved the day! Then along came Indiana Jones
and suddenly it seemed every pre-teen, teenager and undergraduate at university with an interest in archaeology and an idle dream of adventure wanted the Indy Hat. It was just a reblocked Poet model from Herbert Johnson, but the I-gotta-have-it fever for that brown hat reignited the interest in fedoras.
The irony here is the misattribution caused by the Indy Hat. The real credit goes to Charlton Heston who played Harry Steele in a 1954 movie named Secret Of The Incas. Released by Paramount, this marvelous adventure beckons you to the lost city in Peru. There's enough archaeological flavor, replete with the discovery of Incan mummy burial sites and hidden treasure, to keep you on the edge of your seat. It's Harry Steele's brown fedora that is the prototype for an adventurer, the one worn at a jaunty angle by Judah Ben Hur and Moses, not Han Solo.
Why are beautiful fedoras seldom seen? Because you cannot make a one-size-fits-all hat. The shape of a fedora, the height of the crown, the width of the brim, and the subtle nuances of artfully blocking it by a master hatter all depend upon the shape of your head and your face and your ears as well as the length and thickness of your neck. Bespoke hatmaking relies on proper proportions and balance, something that is
difficult for you to see yourself. You cannot submit to having a conformateur clapped on your head by a clerk in a St. James' hat shop,
handed a stock hat, and expect it to approximate a true bespoke hat.
If a hat is designed properly and artfully blocked, you wear the hat. If not,
the hat wears you and it isn't worth a damn. Bespoke hatmakers are artisans. The best of them are few and far between, but their work is superb. Sound a bit like tailors? You bet.
So how do you prepare for an initial meeting with a hatmaker? Look at lots of hats, see what appeals to you but keep an open mind, then have
a dialogue with the hatter. To help you out, there are photos farther down.
Way back in the 1920s there was an American photographer named Alfred Cheney Johnson. He's probably best remembered for his famous
pictures of actresses, his stunningly beautiful nude studies, and his gorgeous photos of the Ziegfeld Girls from the Follies. Would it surprise you to know that a number of those scantily dressed showgirls were no more than fourteen or fifteen years of age when they paraded around the stage of the New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street? Ohh! the scandal in Minneola. What that showman did to poor little Sally. Who cares? Those kids wanted out of the hick bergs in which they were born and made a dash for show business. Disney owns that theatrical landmark now, and the performers in Walt's current productions are just as thrilled to be in the biz. It's the lure of bright lights, big city.
Vanity Fair gave a lot of exposure to Johnson's pictures and one of the advertisers in the magazine, Dobbs Hats, hired him to shoot ads. This was a longform contract that extended over a period of fifteen years, from the Jazz Age to the outbreak of hostilities in Europe that plunged the world into the second war. All of the photos below are from my personal collection of Vanity Fair issues. While the photo quality may vary from snap to snap, you won't have any trouble seeing the hats. As far as I'm concerned, this is the essence of the fedora at its very best. Dobbs Hats
borrows shamelessly from the English hatters of the interwar period, and what you will see is actually a mirror reflection of what the hatters were
doing simultaneously on both sides of the pond. This is truly how fedoras
should look and how they should be worn. Take note of the scale of the crowns in relation to the size of the brims. And don't overlook the clothes on the models. On to the show!
JMB