Hat Blog

Indiana Jones and the Fedora

New Movie coming May 22nd - Wear Your Indiana Jones Fedora to the Movie Theater!

The hat industry is buzzing, giddy in fact: “It’s coming. It’s coming.” No, it’s not the Russians or the Martians. It’s the new Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. These Indiana Jones movies – the first one was released in 1981 - have meant more to the hat business in the last half-century than any other event on the planet. [The only thing that comes close is the relatively new realization that hats serve an enormous benefit in protecting people from the harmful effects of the sun. Imagine, the direct relevance of hats to one’s health has had less impact on this industry than a series of movies!] Indy’s hat is a modern-day icon. Its current influence on the hat buying public is nothing short of phenomenal. The current popularity of fedoras can be traced to the first Indiana Jones movie when Indy, played by Harrison Ford, wears a safari style fedora, where the medium-to-large brim is turned down in the front and the back. The hat has become emblematic of the man. After that, all fedora styles took off. Today’s fashionistas like their fedoras with stingy (short) brims - very much on the other side of the fedora brim length continuum from Indy. Whether they know it or not, these young hipsters are the direct fashion descendents from Indiana Jones' Hat.

The newest installment is scheduled for release in May 2008. Harrison Ford was recently quoted, "I'm delighted to be back in business with my old friends. I don't know if the pants still fit but I know the hat will."

Fred Belinsky
www.VillageHatShop.com
www.Berets.com
www.JaxonHats.com

Jaxon Hats Brings The Authentic Basque Beret To North America

Everything we wear is made in China these days, right? Wrong. It’s true that berets – classically European - are made in Asia and sold in droves in North America, but not all berets.

This iconic headgear originally hails from Europe’s Pyrenees Mountains, home of the Basque culture. With the US Dollar consistently losing ground to the Euro and the quality of apparel from Asia getting better all the time, who in their right mind these days would go to Europe for hats? Answer: Jaxon.

“In our quest for the best, we wanted to bring this authentic headwear to our customers where the differences in quality are obvious,” says Jaxon Hats designer Bruce Zales. Pressed for details, Zales begins by lecturing on the making of wool felt, likening it to a kind of “conjuring” where one hatter’s felt-making formula (compressed, entangled fibers making an incredibly strong material) can be “light years” better than another’s. The quality of the wool-felt material is the important starting point in any felt hat, and if that were the only difference it would be sufficient reason to go to Europe for the Basque Beret. But it’s not the only difference. This meaty pure virgin wool beret is “Impermeable” (Waterproof). The sweatband (many berets don’t even have sweatbands) is made from genuine leather (most US importers of European berets have gone to vinyl as a cost saving strategy). The lining is sewn (not glued) to the inside top of the hat, but not on the sides (so that the beret can “breath” on the wearer’s head). Together, these details make a big difference in comfort, looks, and functionality.

Price? Not an arm and a leg, as Jaxon purchases the substantial quantities required for working directly with the factory-no middleman. The retail is $48 and bulk purchasers/resellers can buy directly from Jaxon at $27.50 each with a purchase of 12 units minimum. You’ve got to see these berets to appreciate this value. Stay warm, stay dry, and be cool.

The Jaxon Basque Beret is available in three colors: Black, Navy, and Grey. Five sizes: Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large, Double-extra Large.

Fred Belinsky
www.VillageHatShop.com
www.Berets.com
www.JaxonHats.com

The Fez

The fez has a long and complicated history in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and North Africa. I am not an historian and am not entirely familiar with the fez’s nuances of meaning in these parts of the world. However, I do know this: for most Muslims, this hat is now politically incorrect. It is considered the hat of the oppressors. On the other hand, in Morocco the fez is a symbol of nationalism; it was worn historically as a protest against the French occupation. It is now associated with the Moroccan royal court. The King of Morocco, the royal guard, cabinet ministers, and the palace staff all wear fezzes and are the only Arab leaders to do so.

The origins of the fez, called the “tarboosh” by the Moroccans, are in dispute. Some claim that its origins are ancient Greece; others claim it comes from the Balkans. The wide acceptance of the fez stems from the Ottoman Empire extending its influence (never to Morocco however) in the early 19th Century. They insisted that their subjects modernize dress and encouraged the fez in lieu of the turban. With the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after WWI, another move towards modernization - this time looking west – actually made the fez illegal in 1925. (Hats having this kind of power and meaning is a recurring theme in history.) Men who wore fezzes were imprisoned. When monarchies were overthrown in Iraq, Egypt, and Libya, the fez was condemned by the new regimes. Many men, for the first time, went bareheaded.

The name “fez” comes from the Moroccan city of the same name. Fez, Morocco produced the dye, made from crimson berries, to color the hat. The decline of the fez’s popularity has had its effect in Morocco too. Its place is not very different from that of the top hat in the UK or USA. Unless you are dressing for a wedding or funeral, or attending an affair at the royal palace, it is unusual to see a young man wearing a fez.

Fred Belinsky
www.VillageHatShop.com

The Bowler

When you picture Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, a Rene Magritte work of art, the four major characters in Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot", or a well dressed British banker, a bowler hat, known also as a derby, almost certainly comes to mind. The bowler, perhaps like no other hat before or since, stands unambiguously as a symbol for an age, a passage in western civilization. The bowler hat was created in 1850 for an English game warden, James Coke. It was intended as a riding hat that Mr. Coke could count on for hard hat protection as he rode his steed through his protectorate looking out for poachers. It soon became, as Fred Miller Robinson wrote in The Man in the Bowler Hat: His History and Iconography, " . . . an emblem through the then-incredible changes that industrialism was engendering-----but as an emblem of many things, a sign of the times. It became clear to me very early on that I was studying modern life by tracing the meanings of this sign. And more, I was gaining a perspective on modern life that was fair to people's real experience of it." A look at who was wearing bowler hats, from the mid-19th Century onward, tells a lot about the this style’s resonance as a symbol for its time. Again, Professor Robinson, “As more and more bowler-hatted figures turned up in my study, they seemed to express something textured and true about la vie moderne. Gamekeepers, squires, street vendors, omnibus drivers, counterjumpers, bankers, union men, women on horseback and in cabaret acts, detectives and hanging judges, dictators and bums---all of these seemed more important in their relations than in their variety, however elusive those relations and seemingly random that variety.” The variety, of course, is significant. Hats had always denoted rank in society-for example, gentlemen wore top hats (and cocked hats before top hats) while the lower social strata wore cloth caps (picture Dickens’ street urchins). Everyman (and woman too if she was so inclined to push the social-fashion envelope) was wearing a bowler. Whether the wearer was making a statement about his liberation, or being glib or ironic, the fact is that both the union man and the banker wore the same hat. Something important was being conveyed through this simple article of headwear. As each of us who has ever put on any hat knows, one cannot place this apparel article on one’s head totally unselfconsciously. The bowler hat marked a change, and the “modern man” by wearing one, wanted the world to know that he was part of it.

Fred Belinsky
www.VillageHatShop.com

The Baseball Cap

The baseball cap in an American icon. It is in fact the only hat style that is an American creation. Its popularity in the United States received a big boost in the era of Babe Ruth, when baseball fans wore the cap as a badge of identification with their favorite team. This simple and functional style was a perfect fit for a country that glorified democracy, anti-elitism, and the like. Baseball, the national pastime and a passion for more than a few, also had the distinction of being the only American sport where a hat was an official part of the uniform. A cap could be created with the logo and colors of a basketball, football, or hockey team, but only in baseball could you wear an exact replica of the hat worn by your heroes on the field. From there it was a short step for truckers, farmers, and laborers to incorporate the ball cap as de rigueur in their daily attire. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the baseball cap become a hot fashion item, propelled in large part when it became associated with hip hop music artists. Like Coca-Cola and McDonalds, the baseball cap became a symbol of America. Those who feared American hegemony wouldn’t get near one, but those who wanted to identify with American popular culture, began their wardrobe with a ball cap on his or her head and sneakers on the feet. Today, I think you’d be hard pressed to find any American without at least one ball cap style in his or her closet, drawer, or car trunk. Imagine that! With the explosion of digitized embroidery and advances in silk screening, the ball cap with its message on the crown became a walking billboard. With a message on the top of one’s head, the wearer could let the world know just what brands they preferred, their political point of view, their favorite activities, where they’ve traveled lately, their favorite band, movie or cartoon character, and of course, the roots of it all, their favorite team. Hence, a perfect headwear marriage, made in America. A simple, portable/pack-able, functional, even mundane, hat style popularized by middle-America now adorned with a personal, individual, specific, colorful, message attesting to the wearers unique preferences and choices.

Fred Belinsky
www.VillageHatShop.com

The Top Hat

If the bowler connoted a more democratic future, the top hat, most certainly represented, in the words of hat historian Colin McDowell, “. . . the power of political conservatism and the rule of the status quo.” The top hat traces its origins to the tall sugar loaf hats of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. After an 18th Century hiatus where the tricorne and bicorn (also known as the cocked hat) supplanted the high hat as the fashion of the day, the high hat, in its new iterations, most notable the stove pipe shape that we now know as the top hat, returned to rule the day in the very late 1700s. It’s reputation was firmly established when, in 1890, the St. James Gazette wrote, “When we are told, ’He’s a fellow who wears a top hat and a frock coat,’ we know sufficiently well what sort of fellow he is.” When Edgar Degas paints his series of Portraits at the Stock Exchange, he is certainly commenting on this stuffy, out of touch, segment of society. Of course, Freudian psychologists had their own interpretations on these hats and those who wore them regarding them as obvious phallic symbols. As funny and impractical as top hats may seem to our modern ideas on fashion, they have stood the test of time. True, after the advent of the automobile at the beginning of the 20th Century, and the top hat’s impractical fit (literally and figuratively) in the Modern Age, the top hat’s popularity did wane. Never the less, this hat is a survivor. High school seniors seek them out at prom time. Undertakers and Christmas carolers still wear top hats as an integral segment of their dress. The hat comes out at weddings and at big days at the races. The collapsible opera hat, also know as the Gibus, named after its inventor Frenchman Antoine Gibus, is still sufficiently popular that a New York manufacturer has a successful business today with this style hat as its sole output. And Uncle Sam, symbol of democratic America, for some reason still prefers a top hat--perhaps with all its elitist connotations, the top hat was still a move in the right direction from the crown.

Fred Belinsky
www.VillageHatShop.com
www.JaxonHats.com

The Cowboy Hat

Although associated with the American West, the cowboy hat, arguably, is not an American creation. Arguably because there is no doubt that hats with big brims and large crowns had been popular in Mexico, coming to Mexico from Spain, well before “the American West was won“. Historians trace the origins in Spain to the European invasions by the very accomplished horsemen from Mongolia. Nevertheless, like all hat styles, modifications, by such notables as John B. Stetson, did bring new iterations on an old theme and what we now know as the cowboy hat became inextricably tied to a place and time. The American West in both fact and legend was (and to a great extent still is) filled with such hats. John B. Stetson - the style and his name have become synonymous - introduced “The Boss of the Plains”, and became a multi-millionaire. His story is American legend and resembles a cross between that of real life personality Johnny Appleseed and the fictional Horatio Alger protagonists. Stetson’s rags beginning, ends with a 1906 death when his factory was turning out four million cowboy hats a year. Here was a hat that suited its surroundings. The big brim and high crown protected the cowboy from the elements--sun, rain, hail, snow, dust, mosquitoes and flies, and low branches. He could carry water in his hat or use it to whip his horse or cow. And, of course, this big handsome hat, in short order became his sartorial piece de resistance when courting the ladies. Early on, the style was picked up by notables like The Texas Rangers, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Annie Oakley, and even George Custer was wearing a Stetson when he met his fate at Little Big Horn. When the movies came along, Tom Mix, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger, and, of course, John Wayne all became personalities that were inseparable from their hats. Politicians, like Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan, and currently George W. Bush, are happy to wear their western hats whereby they associate themselves with both their home states and the values of the old West. The style is forever being tweaked by designers and milliners and often becomes the leading style of the moment for women. Now is such a time. The movie Runaway Bride came along about at the same time that pop stars Madonna and Mary Blige were wearing cowboy hats on stage and the fashion trend reached a tipping point and just took off. Around the world, the style’s popularity will come and go as is the nature of fashion trends, but the place and time of the cowboy hat and what it symbolizes will forever be etched in history.

Fred Belinsky
www.VillageHatShop.com

The Fedora

Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney. Clark Kent and FDR. What happened to the Bowler and the Top Hat? After all, for most of the 20th Century, up until 1960 when John Kennedy took off his hat at his presidential inauguration, men were not considered dressed for work without a hat. In that century, the fedora was king (also known as a trilby in Europe) supplanting, in short order, all other styles for men. Although the style is mostly associated with men, the name “Fedora” comes from the heroine of French playwright Victorien Sardou’s drama presented in Paris in 1882. She wore the hat style that would become the hallmark of movie tough guys, Chicago gangsters, private eyes, newspaper reporters--in fact by the 1930s, virtually every man who put on a suit of cloths topped off with a fedora. If you are reading this and your grandfather came from either Europe or North America, chances are he wore a fedora. Today, the fedora is, hands down, the best selling men’s style (we’re talking full size hat-not ball caps and the like). The safari style, a fedora crown with a brim turned down in the front and the back, received a huge boost with the Indiana Jones movies where Indy’s hat was emblematic of the man. When we in the hat business engage our fantasy of men’s hats coming back in general fashion, what we picture is the fedora. The fedora was and can be again, everyman’s hat--the true successor to the bowler. Snap the brim and let your girlfriend know “Here’s looking at you kid.”

Fred Belinsky
www.VillageHatShop.com
www.JaxonHats.com

The Beret

Although worn as military headgear in ancient Greece, the modern origin of the beret is traced to the Basques, people living on both the French and Spanish sides of the Pyrenees Mountains. Centuries ago, the Basques were great fishermen and sailors, a fact that might explain the appearance of a very similar hat in Scotland. Both the Scotch tam and the beret are woven in one piece without a seam or a binding. The original Basque beret was either navy blue or red, but today the beret is available in a wide array of colors. An influence of WW1 was the general adoption for sports wear by both men and women, of that very smart dark blue cap worn by the French Alpine troops, the age-old Basque beret. Few items of clothing have been adopted by so many varied groups of people living in different periods of history as the beret. In WW11, the French Resistance movement, the Maquis, wore the Basque beret. Because it was the most common French headwear, the Maquis was able to wear it without bringing undo suspicion to this covert operation. The covert military connotation was propelled further when the beret was taken up by special forces, often with the suggestion of ‘undress’ uniform, such as USA Green Berets, Black Berets (USA Rangers), UN Blue Berets, to name a few. It was a short leap for these sub-surface ciphers to have been embraced by artists and revolutionaries. Che Guevara, a hero of the Cuban revolution, made the beret a worldwide symbol of the revolutionary guerilla fighter. The Guardian Angels, a vigilante group who patrols the subways and streets of some of the world’s major cities, wear red berets. And who can forget that American artist and revolutionary, Monica Lewinsky hugging President Clinton in her beret?

Fred Belinsky
www.VillageHatShop.com
www.Berets.com