Club Obi Wan

Has anyone experience sun bleaching, or colour fading from rain or anything with their lids? Does the felt normally keep it's orginal colour?

What's the longest anyone's had a fedora and does it see a lot of outdoor action?

Are you talking about hats in general? Or, the Federation and Federation Deluxe?

In any case, they hold their color fairly well. I have a fed deluxe that all the stiffner has been washed out and it's still brown. The water did seem to have a little bit of brown color in. But not anymore.

The color will change as it's worn in the elements. Sun can do just as much dammage as rain. Sun will fade and shrink the hat if you are not careful.

Just my $0.02

Pyro

That's helpful, yes.

Info on a vaiety of feds would be appreciated too.

Hi, I have about 7 different Akubra hats all in different colors. I wear all of them in all sorts of weather. Here in the southern foothills it rains often and often quite hard. I have NEVER seen any discoloration in my hats caused by rain. I have been to North Africa twice in the last year with my fawn Akubra and a tanbark brown Akubra. These hats have endured the unbelievably intense Sahara sun for repeated daylong periods with ZERO fading. One shirt I wore faded during a single day but the two Akubras still look great. One thing that will stain an Akubra is sweat. My sweat has stained more than one of my Akubras permanently. The sweat band works great but if your sweat ever comes in direct contact with the felt, it will probably stain it a lighter shade. That's my experience anyway. Havana

Mine has a little color fade from daily sunshine and treatment in several torrential storms and one typhoon. It's still the lovely indy color, but the rain seems to blotch a little on the underside from uneven rain on the hat.

They hold up well, but like any other dyed felt, they will fade and lighten in color with exposure to the sun. This does not mean a hat is inferior, they all do it, regardless of price and quality. It is inevitable. To me, that is good. I like a well worn look. Fedora

My wool Tilly started off as a dark chocolate brown and is now a medium rust-brown, is why I ask. But it's still a great hat for keeping rain and spiderwebs outta my hair.

Thanks for the info, people!

eeewww...wool...I haven't noticed much discoloration and fading...but I'd say vintage will hold its color better than most modern...

High Regards,
Daryl.

yeah, yeah, I have a (rat?) fur Robert Hall fedora now, so the Tilly's retired.

...that's a lot of rats...

In Christ,
Shane

Snakewhip,

my regular Fed is clearly darker underneath the ribbon. It has faded a lot, which indeed is a good thing - the Fed is a little too dark brown for an Indy lid...
During my numerous soakings of the hat when reblock experimenting, I also noticed that it bled heavily every time when immersed in warm/hot water... I figured it was going to bleed less for every soaking, but no way... now, it's guite mottled and faded... some discolorization too, due to freak reaction with hat block...