Club Obi Wan

Just a random question I had pop in my head today, I'm not asking if it was present, but how much did hat wearers care or notice it? Did people back in the day not wear their fedoras in the rain for fear of taper? Did people send in their hats for reblocks at the first sign? I know we all cringe at the first sight of it just because it verges from what we see on screen, but what was the opinion of it back in the golden age of hats?

Regards,
Brian

Since hats were an everyday item back then, there were hat shops in every town. Yes, hats tapered back then. Folks wore them in the rain, too, since they weren't just fashion items, but practical headgear designed to protect you from the elements. Since hat shops were so prevalent, it was normal to take in your hat to your local hatter for an occasional cleaning or reblock. Think of it like taking a suit to the cleaners. As for taper, many fedoras were naturally tapered by design. Though the style is nothing new, we Indy fans tend to get stuck on the stovepipe look.

This is a subject that has always interested me intently.
I have heard many folks say that years ago, the felt that was made did not taper with use and exposing it to the elements. They based their opinions on hats that were bought from ebay, very old hats dating back to the 30's 40's and 50's. I have owned scores of those very fine old vintage hats. And, you can get them soaked and they still hold the shape without tapering. So many of these guys then ASSUMED the felt of that era was better and the proof was in the lack of taper that happened when wetted. And still to this day, you could never ever convince them to the contrary. But these guys apparently know NOTHING of how felt is made, and that the shrinking that occurs in new felt is a prerequisite for actually making felt. If fur did not matt together and shrink, felting would be impossible to achieve. The shrinkage is what makes fur into felt.

The taper resistance of vintage felt is due to one primary factor. The age of the fur in the hat. Once a living substance dies, in this case, fur, it no longer reacts to the heat/humidity. Dead fur therefore will not shrink like new, live, fur.

That vintage hats shrunk and tapered back when they were new is the reason almost every dry cleaning establishment back in those days offered cleaning and reblocking for the hat wearing public. Plus, every town, large or small usually had several small mom and pop hat shops that made hats, and cleaned and reblocked hats. Hats were relatively expensive back in those days, and somewhat of a status symbol. But for the less fortunate, a whole industry was in place to clean and reblock their very expensive investment. The rich just bought new hats each season. The not so rich had their hats refurbished.

Of course, there is another factor involved as well. Overall the felt of that era was much better than the felt one buys from the big factories today, like Hatco, Borsalino, etc. Most of the felt that comes from these large companies today is not on par with what they used to make. But, these days, not many folks would ever pay what this sort of felt would cost, so the factories make the felt fast and dirty and are not particular about the quality of the felt they are making.

This lack of attention to quality felt allowed the small western hatter to source the good felt from places like Portugal and my own feltmaker, and to literally take Stetson's customers away from them. The western hat market is what kept quality hats alive, well, and available, if you were willing to pay the price. And going by what I know of the western hat market, this attention to quality keeps these guys snowed under with many having a lead time of 8 months to literally a couple of years. That's because the learned customer knows that what he will get is so much superiour to that of the big hat companies, that it is well worth the wait.

So, you can take a high quailty felt, like what some small custom hatters use, and put it in the closet for 40 years, and you will have a practically taper proof hat. It is all in the age of the felt. Like wine, and other things, age improves a quality felt. Too bad it does not work that way for humans! Fedora

I live in Rainland. Now, it rains less up here than it does in New York City; but rather than come down all at once, it tends to drizzle down over long periods. I'm one of those people who believe that one of the purposes of a hat is to keep one's head dry, so I wear my hats in the wet. My wool pork pies and fedora are no problem. At $35 it doesn't matter if they get a little floppy. I'm currently wearing my Stetson rabbit fedora. First, it's inexpensive. Second, I can always walk down to Byrnie Utz and have them re-block it. No worries. I only have one other animal felt hat, an inexpensive XXXX beaver Stetson 'plains style' Western hat (shortish, telescoping crown). I don't wear it often, since it's a little too cowboy-y for my tastes. But it has been out in the rain and hasn't shrunk.

I only ordered my AB hat in November, but I'm already eagerly awaiting its arrival. I'm guessing it will arrive in May? Just in time for the awesome PNW weather. (Oh, I like the Springs and Summers up here so much better than SoCal!) Do I need to take any precautions with the AB? Can I just take it to the hat shop for re-blocking if it needs it?


:

I wouldn't take my AB to a hat shop to have them reblock it. I seriously doubt that they would have a straight sided block like the AB uses to get the Indy shape. It would come back looking very different.

You could buy your own AB block and take that block to the hat shop and have them use it for a reblock. That would preserve the straight sided Indy shape.

How do I get one?

Thanks for the interesting answer Steve. And now I know. And knowing is half the battle.


Regards,
Brian

The Pilot wrote:Can I just take it to the hat shop for re-blocking if it needs it?

Is there even a hat shop up here in the PNW that can do re-blocking?

Byrnie Utz in downtown Seattle says they do.

Being a great fan of vintage films it seems to me that there were many folks in the 30's and 40's who wanted a tapered hat. I've certainly seen photos of Cary Grant wearing seriously tapered hats. I can only assume that this was the fashion at certain times. The fact that the Raiders hat wasn't tapered doesn't mean that all tapered hats are 'bad'

Fedora wrote:This is a subject that has always interested me intently.
I have heard many folks say that years ago, the felt that was made did not taper with use and exposing it to the elements. They based their opinions on hats that were bought from ebay, very old hats dating back to the 30's 40's and 50's. I have owned scores of those very fine old vintage hats. And, you can get them soaked and they still hold the shape without tapering. So many of these guys then ASSUMED the felt of that era was better and the proof was in the lack of taper that happened when wetted. And still to this day, you could never ever convince them to the contrary. But these guys apparently know NOTHING of how felt is made, and that the shrinking that occurs in new felt is a prerequisite for actually making felt. If fur did not matt together and shrink, felting would be impossible to achieve. The shrinkage is what makes fur into felt.

The taper resistance of vintage felt is due to one primary factor. The age of the fur in the hat. Once a living substance dies, in this case, fur, it no longer reacts to the heat/humidity. Dead fur therefore will not shrink like new, live, fur.

That vintage hats shrunk and tapered back when they were new is the reason almost every dry cleaning establishment back in those days offered cleaning and reblocking for the hat wearing public. Plus, every town, large or small usually had several small mom and pop hat shops that made hats, and cleaned and reblocked hats. Hats were relatively expensive back in those days, and somewhat of a status symbol. But for the less fortunate, a whole industry was in place to clean and reblock their very expensive investment. The rich just bought new hats each season. The not so rich had their hats refurbished.

Of course, there is another factor involved as well. Overall the felt of that era was much better than the felt one buys from the big factories today, like Hatco, Borsalino, etc. Most of the felt that comes from these large companies today is not on par with what they used to make. But, these days, not many folks would ever pay what this sort of felt would cost, so the factories make the felt fast and dirty and are not particular about the quality of the felt they are making.

This lack of attention to quality felt allowed the small western hatter to source the good felt from places like Portugal and my own feltmaker, and to literally take Stetson's customers away from them. The western hat market is what kept quality hats alive, well, and available, if you were willing to pay the price. And going by what I know of the western hat market, this attention to quality keeps these guys snowed under with many having a lead time of 8 months to literally a couple of years. That's because the learned customer knows that what he will get is so much superiour to that of the big hat companies, that it is well worth the wait.

So, you can take a high quailty felt, like what some small custom hatters use, and put it in the closet for 40 years, and you will have a practically taper proof hat. It is all in the age of the felt. Like wine, and other things, age improves a quality felt. Too bad it does not work that way for humans! Fedora

Great, informative answer.

Interesting comment about the age of felt. However, I have a 100 year old "Tom Mix" (for lack of a better term) hat that seems to shrink just about as much as any others. I tend to think that it's more the continuous stretch/shrink cycles over time that cause older hats to finally find an "angle of repose." I could be wrong, it's just that I haven't experienced old, unworn or relatively unworn, hats to be any less shrink resistant than new so long as the felt quality is similar.

My hats have always shrunk and back when I wore them every day I would guess that my fedoras went into the haberdashers every 3 months or so. Not so much for cleaning, but for reblocking and stretching. This was in Portland, Oregon, and John Helmer's was my haberdasher. (The shop still exists and the son now runs it - I don't know if they still have a source for reblocking).

I've had a few well worn antique hats and I don't think they stretched much, but they were also quite well worn by the time I got them so I think they were pretty much stable by then.

Didn't answer your original question and meant to.

I wasn't around in the golden era, but in the late 70's and 80's when there were still haberdashers around, taper was very much a part of your fitting. Of course, you had many more styles and shapes to choose from.

That said, more important was the crown height and brim width, which were associated to your build. Once you found a good crown height and brim, THEN you worried about felt types, colors, bash, etc.

The problem at that time was the most hats were not being made "old-style" but in the alpen inspired short tapered crown, narrow brim style that fit into cars better. It's what the few men buying hats were buying and I always hated them. But there were many great Homburgs and a few fedoras (including the Stetsons which were still good) around.

By the way, my haberdasher HATED it when I asked about "fedoras." He told me there was NO SUCH THING and that that term meant nothing. I don't now remember what words I used to describe what I wanted but remember always having to avoid using "fedora."

Interesting he'd say that, as it was (and IS) a specific felt hat style that goes back to the late 1800's. It's not a generic descriptor.

Then, I knew an armoror who bristled when you mentioned 'clips' for pistols. He'd quickly correct you stating they were 'magazines'! Clips were used in certain revolvers....which he was absolutely correct....but old habits die hard.

Regards! Michaelson

Agreed. It actually used to both confuse and aggrevate me, but it actually kinda angered him!

It is hard to judge what has happened to an old hat you find since you only know what it looks like now; not what it looked like new.
However, most of the mens' felt hats I have come accross in thrift stores and flea markets seem to have quite a bit of taper. Also, they are nearly all small sizes (virtualy any hat is too small for my tater though). I know people are getting larger in general, but are the vintage hats in smaller sizes because they started out that way or did they shrink? It is hard to tell since the size tag, if there ever was one, is usually gone.

Interesting comment about the age of felt. However, I have a 100 year old "Tom Mix" (for lack of a better term) hat that seems to shrink just about as much as any others. I tend to think that it's more the continuous stretch/shrink cycles over time that cause older hats to finally find an "angle of repose." I could be wrong, it's just that I haven't experienced old, unworn or relatively unworn, hats to be any less shrink resistant than new so long as the felt quality is similar.

I am somewhat surprised by this, since it has not been my experience, or that of the hundred of members at TFL who regularly shop ebay for the price savings, and quality of the vintage hats.

I have had many vintage hats that I bought over the years, that would not shrink up to a shorter crown height, and a couple I even went overboard and boiled the entire hats in water, to find no loss of crown height, or shrinkage. Of course, these were all very high quality hats too, clear nutria, clear beaver, but also some blends in the mix.


I therefore have to think your experience is an anomaly, as no one else over the years have had your same experience.

With that said, many vintage hats were blocked tapered from the outset. Tapered hats were popular then and now, as well as the straighter blocks. Now, if a hat was blocked on a tapered block 60 years ago, and the hat "set" to that shape, and then was blocked on a straight sided block, the hat may very well revert to the original "set". The memory of the felt may overcome any stretching of this hat, and therefore revert back to its original blockshape.

I guess all I can say is after working with literally hundred of vintage hats over the years, my experience is totally different from yours. And not just me, but most of the vintage hat fans at TFL. One of the main selling points of vintage hats from ebay to that crowd is the taper resistance of those vintage hats. In fact, for a long time, this fact was used as PROOF that all modern felt was inferior to that felt of yesteryear. I stumbled upon the secret while talking to my local retired custom hatmaker,who brought out a western hat made back in the early 1900's that had been handed down to him. He remarked, this hat won't taper, and explained why, although he actually never called it dead felt, that was my own application of a term. He used the word aged.

I tend to think that it's more the continuous stretch/shrink cycles over time that cause older hats to finally find an "angle of repose."

I certainly can agree on this statement as this would certainly help out in the "set" but this does not explain the hundreds of vintage hats that came with the original liners, sweats, ribbon, etc, and were basically brand new looking, and had never been reblocked, as the factory work was clearly there.

Perhaps that Tom Mix hat you spoke of was a wool hat, or a wool blend? Now, that would certainly explain why it was a shrinker. But, there is another factor involved as alluded to in my original post. The quality of the felt. I think you have to start out with a good quality felt to begin with, and perhaps the age of that felt was not enough by itself to make it stable. That is, I don't think a poor quality felt's would improve with time. Garbage in, garbage out. Fedora

Fedora,
That also answers MY question, they started out smaller.
I was not saying that they shrank I was asking IF they shrank.
Most of the vintage hats I have found are in great shape, just too small for me. As for the taper and height found in some vintage hats, like you said, that was the style when those particular hats were made.

All I can say is that my experience differs. The 100 year old hat I spoke of is high quality felt. The later hats were all dress-style hats and I can't vouch for the quality of the felt, but they all seemed to me to be high quality. I've never owned a wool hat.

I wonder if the height of the crown might have anything to do with it. Mine have all been high crowned hats, taller than has been typical since the 60's at least. My fedoras all averaged about 6" tall crowns. The "Tom Mix" is a 7" crown and a heavier felt.

That said, none of this applies to Top Hats or boaters, which have all held their shape well.

Sorry to keep harping on this subject, and I am honestly not trying to be argumentative, but it interests me and I started thinking maybe I was crazy! So please take all of this in the spirit intended, I am inquisitive.

I started thinking about it and two things about my experience are true:
1) The hats I owned that didn't shrink were my "best" hats - I paid the most for them, so they were probably higher quality felt.
2) I don't remember any of them getting wet or being worn in bright sunlight for long periods.

They were also kept in boxes.

Also, I am not at all talking about the kind of shrinkage that you get with wool hats. My dad and brothers have all owned wool hats and I know what happens to those. I should have remembered that there may be some here new to hats and wool hats may well be their only experience. The shrinkage I am talking about is MUCH less severe. In my opinion, though, it is noticable.

There may be something to this idea of old hats not noticeably shrinking. All natural fibres respond to heat and humidity. But perhaps, over time, their ability to expand and contract diminishes as the fibre walls break down. Something similar happens to wood fibres. In theory this would weaken the fibres in the felt, but perhaps it's not a significant factor in felt, I don't know. If that were true, a NOS hat that has seen many years of expansion and contraction, and that fit when purchased "old" may continue to fit. That seems to fit both our experiences since the same kind of forces would be seen in both well worn and NOS hats. And perhaps reblocking somehow restores some of this response to climate? I just don't know.

What I can say is that my hats, new and old, have all acquired taper and become tighter (and I am not discounting the sweatband) over time except those that were extremely high quality to begin with and weren't worn except for dress occasions.

As for the "Tom Mix" style hat, I neglected to mention that when I got the hat (it was made in Tacoma, WA, but has since been completely remade) I also got the block it was made on and it would take ALOT of stretching to get it back on that block. (It was also a tapered crown to begin with)

For people that may be reading this before investing in a high quality hat, nothing I say should suggest that you won't be happy with your new hat. In my opinion the shrinkage factor is much less significant that ensuring that the hat fits well to begin with. I hate what happens to a hat that is too short (front to back) on the head - it distorts the brim and contributes more to a severe taper than anything else.

And I am also not saying there's anything wrong with taper. Many of the classic styles, in my opinion, again, depend on taper. The center dent seems to look best, at least on me, with a stovepipe taper, but the teardrop, alpine, etc. styles often look better with less material at the top - but this is all personal opinion and really depends on your face and body shape.

The simple truth is that I feel blessed that anyone's talking about this at all - it's been a long time since you can walk into a haberdasher in every town or city.