As such, I think fans of the previous films' felt the CS hats were "off" because of this "lack" of distinction (which we all know is not the case).
Could be I guess. We sent only straight sided blocked hats in as samples, because we knew most of the fans would groan if we had another TOD hat in Indy 4. The block shape we both wanted, was not chosen though. As I have said many time prior, Bernie liked the straight sided fedora block(and it is stamped on the bottom as "fedora" better than our Raiders blocks. Probably because this fedora block shape is so versatile and he could play with it to get the look he was after. Depending upon how you crease this hat, you can have a really straight sided hat, or even a tapered fedora too. It is all in the creasing of this blockshape. I feel that was what he liked about this vintage block.
Also, I have to recognize that the guy who critisized the Indy 4 hat so much did have an ulterior motive. He was supporting a now defunct hatter, and was blinded by that fact. Basically I doubt he like either me or Marc, for some reason and this critique was colored by that. So, it was his way of getting at us.
I do understand the other critiques, but those critques really had nothing to do with the shape of the hat itself. Instead, those guys did not like the pure beaver felt that Bernie chose to use, due to the wetness of the film. They thought it looked too cowboyish in texture. OF course, any pure beaver felt can be associated with cowboy hats, but back in the day, the 7x and 10x Stetson dress line also featured a finer textured felt. I think we tend to confuse great quality felt with cowboy hats sometimes.
The type of felt used in Raiders is a very vintage looking felt, that was not used in the next two films. In fact, the look of the felt on the LC fedora is totally a western looking felt, if one were to classify it in this manner. But it really isn't. It is just a tighter felted rabbit hat, that does not feature the porosity of the Raiders fedora. So, Indy 4 was not the first film to use a non porous type felt. It had already been done, at least considering the LC fedora.
When going for durability in a new felt, most hatters will chose a tighter felted fur body. These tend to shrink less with wear. A porous type hat body is not felted very tight, and the felting will continue on, with wear, and these hats tend to shrink really fast and taper as well. Generally speaking of course.
Once a felt gets old enough though, even the porous type felt stops reacting to the elements. You see a number of vintage hats that were made from this type of felt, and yet they seem immune to shrinkage. That is what fur does I guess. Age is good for it.
Yet in old films, I see the porous type of felt, but also the tighly felted felt as well. The tighter felted hats would have cost more, back then. To confuse a porous type of felt with a tighter felt, and then call it western is actually not understanding felt. IMO. Fedora