BUT: this is something I haven’t seen in my entire life. Not even in my dreams and I dream about hats a LOT!
Ever since I became interested in hats with the age of 13, I’ve been dreaming about the ultimate Indy Fedora. Now, of course the term “ultimate Indy Fedora” is relative. For one that would be a “vintage” HJ from the early 80’s, for the other again that would be nothing but a piece of costume and when it comes to craftsmanship and materials, one can discuss until “where the devil lives” freezes over as well.
For ME it’s a hat that is made from the best materials possible and solely by hand. It should be super accurate and built to stand up against the harshest elements for many, many years. At the same time it should „radiate“ (for the lack of better words) a luxury like a custom made tuxedo or a Rolls Royce.
I’ve been chasing that hat for 20 years now and until yesterday my own Raiders Fedora was at least as close to that goal, that I’ve been running around with it happily for the past three years.
Then came today… Stefan and I were working on a couple of hats that we’ve blocked, dim. cut, pre-aged and pounced during the last days. Among them a new hat for Adam Savage from Mythbusters (in trade of the screen used one from the motorcycle flip scene) and then this one, for Chris in Germany. I had just put the sweatbands together for Adam and Chris and was happy that everything turned out so nicely. I cleaned them for a last time and the surface was just STUNNING! Stefan and I have gone up from 2000 to 2500 grit not too long ago and both hats felt like a recently shaved… like velvet. I was a LITTLE jealous, because the surface put anything I’ve seen in the past to shame but on the other hand, my Raiders Fedora is made from the CS felt batch, so why complain.
I started to put in Chris’ sweatband while LC was running on the DVD player. Every single stitch turned out as if I’d been doing it with a sewing machine. I was starting to look forward to seeing the final hat, as it seemed to turned out extraordinary. I finished the bow and sew on the ribbon and again the stitches were EXTREMELY hard to determine. My brain started commenting the hat with “darn, that’s a beauty” and my fingers started to put in a plain white liner I had from a rejected Henry (Chris asked me to, personally I prefer the bridal satin liners with the logo). Everything turned out real well again and I only had to flange the brim in order to finish the hat. After doing that, I went back to the house to take care of some other things and came back an hour or so later to do a final QC on the hat. I took it out of the brim flange and there it was! As if some pixies had blown some magical pixie dust on the hat while I was gone, the hat was not only finished, it also felt better than any other hat I’ve ever held in my hands. I could hardly keep my hands off it, that’s how great the surface turned out. I searched the hat for small flaws again and again, trying to find any detail that could have been better. I spent half an hour doing this, but there was NOTHING to be found! There‘s not a single detail I could have done better, no thread could have turned out nicer, nothing I’d like to have done differently – just a perfect CS Fedora.
Since I wanted to have professional pictures take of this particular hat, I asked Chris, if I could send it to my good friend John Penman, so Bryan could take some pictures (Bryan does a TERRIFIC job and has a great experience with taken pictures of hats IMHO). Chris agreed and next week (unfortunately) I have to let this baby go… The hat I’ve been always dreaming of.
Here are a couple of poor pictures made by myself, so you get a first impression:
This is the new standard on which my future hats will have to prove worthy. I’m dying to see more of these.
Regards,
Marc
