WAR OF THE FEDORAS!!! or PLEASE HELP A NEWB!

Hey fellow Indy fans,

I've loved fedoras all my life. When I was a kid, I discovered fedoras through 30s movies I used to love, through Dick Tracy comics, and of course, through Indy.

I had a few fedoras in high school I used to love, but never got an Indy fedora.

Since college, I've lost my fedoras and I miss having a good classic hat to wear.

So here's my dilemma.

I want a tough, durable, yet reasonably priced hat that I can wear with a suit but which will also stand up to everyday use.

I've heard that the following hats are great, both from The Raven and other sources.

But there's just so much conflicting info out there that I can't make a decision.

Here are my choices:

The Akubra Adventurer from David Morgan: More affordable since it's in the U.S., but I hear it's not as durable as...

The Akubra Federation IV

Which I hear is a durable hat, but it's in AU and that shipping is a big hit on my budget. Of course, the other hat recommended is the...

Christy's Adventurer from Hornet's Hats. Also a bit pricey, as it's coming from London.

And finally...

...a lot of sites are hyping the Official Indy Fur Felt, which of course is the cheapest of this bunch. But I've read that it's not a very durable hat and will not stand up to being a daily-wear hat like the others.

So...please...help me out!

And thanks in advance.

Oh, by the way, I have about 150 to spend, tops.

\S/

hey man I know what you mean they're pricy but... i own an official indy hat and it's durable and I wear it all the time.. outside , in the rain anywhere.
One thing you need to do or what i did was i reshaped the wool fedora. i made the pinch tighter by getting the pinch wet and then putting a clip on it to make a tighter pinch. it looks a little funny at first but the pinch relaxes after a little while but is still tight and looks much more screen acurate. this is my signature method so refer people to oliver jones!

oliverjones18 said:

hey man I know what you mean they're pricy but... i own an official indy hat and it's durable and I wear it all the time.. outside , in the rain anywhere.
One thing you need to do or what i did was i reshaped the wool fedora. i made the pinch tighter by getting the pinch wet and then putting a clip on it to make a tighter pinch. it looks a little funny at first but the pinch relaxes after a little while but is still tight and looks much more screen acurate. this is my signature method so refer people to oliver jones!

Click to expand...

Which official hat do you have, Oliver? The fur felt?

I have an official wool felt but it's clearly just a display piece...

\S/

i have the wool felt non-crushable from u s wings

Personally, I recommend either the Camptown Hats Fieldmaster from Ken, or the Peter Brothers custom Indy hat (for a picture of mine, check out the "I finally got my first Fedora" thread I started). The Peter Brothers turnaround is 8 weeks, which is actually pretty darn fast for a custom Fedora, and you really get to customize it. Check out www.peterbrothers.com for all the info. They are great to work with.

Camptown hats are great too, but I am still waiting on mine, so I can't speak personally on it. I do know they are high quality hats for very affordable prices, and Ken is a really great guy.

dude you can get a nice fedora for cheap. don't waste money on well i guess good hats, but the "official" fedoras are $30-$50 and still good quality if you shape it like I said.

I got my fedora recently from millerhats.com I love my hat. Give it a peek.

If you have a spending limit of $150, there are 2 great choices out of those you mentioned: The Federation IV and the Christy's Adventurer. Which is right for you depends on your personal taste and how you intend to use the hat.

If you want the very same hat that was used in the first 3 Indy films and don't mind not getting the expensive Herbert Johnson brand name, you want the Christy's. Many English hatters use the same factory to make their hats, and when you buy the Christy's instead of a Herbert Johnson, you benefit by saving hundreds of dollars!

If you are going to take your hat on a lot of long hikes in all kinds of harsh weather conditions or subject it to other forms of rough treatment, the Federation would probably be a better choice. It's built for the outdoors. The Christy's is more for normal, light use like wearing to work, shopping or brief walks, etc.

The Akubra Adventurer does not have as appealing a blockshape as those 2, in my opinion.

If saving as much money as you can is a priority and screen accuracy is not, one of the official hats would be okay.

Jack

Don't get the akubra adventurer, that was made before the Fed IV. The Fed IV is THE most accurate and durable "Cheap" fedora there is, get that one

Jaxon Iconoclast

I went the route of the Iconoclast:

http://www.villagehatshop.com/jaxon_iconoclast.html

A $60 hat that you can reshape (pinch and crown) with a little sprayed-on water. Let it air dry.

Beat up Nazis and find ancient treasure the same day.

How close is the color on the Jaxon Iconoclast?

Iconoclast color concerns

My first impulse was to say, "What's your email address?" I'll put a picture or two your way that I snapped myself (of myself) - no color adjustments - and let you decide. Second, as an artist I'd like to think I have an eye for color. With that said, I find the live hat's color to be a match. In my opinion, the picture posted on Villagehatshop.com appears to have been hit with a warm filter for visual appeal (a selling technique, as I understand it); that is to say that the color in the picture is not what I'm wearing. What I'm wearing looks screen accurate, as far as I can see. In standard room lighting and daylight, the felt is a drab and dusty brown, as any good Indy hat should be, more like the color of the Jaxon Crushable Aussie in the lower right panel of VHS's Iconoclast page (see my post above for the link), and even the Aussie seems to have been hit with one of Photoshop's warm filters. The grosgrain trim is, in fact, a dull dark brown (the picture does accurately capture that feature), and while some would argue rightly that everybody knows Indy's hat's trim was black, I am satisfied with the dull dark brown because it adds to the illusion of the hat being dusty (as well as sun-aged and worn in) without having to wait years for the trim to dull or coat the hat in Fuller's Earth (so, allergy-friendly if that's a concern for anyone)...just add cobwebs, if you please, to match desired screen accuracy. Equally, it'll work with a suit because you're not wafting dust all over the place.

Reshaping the Iconoclast

Incidentally, I used Downy wrinkle releaser in a spray bottle. I know, I was a little too impulsive to track down an empty spray bottle and fill it with water. But it did the trick. After a nice even mist (2 pumps max between air drying...which happens fairly fast) over whatever part I was working on, I rubbed the mist lightly into the felt, then gave the crown and pinch the shape I wanted based on photos from Raiders of the Lost Ark; you occasionally have to brace the crown from inside the hat to give it the right pop or dip here or there and sculpt over that hand with your free hand on the outside. I didn't need any clips, but then again, I did the reshaping in stages - crown first, then the front point of the pinch, then the angling wings of the pinch on each side - over a period of about an hour, letting the hat air dry between each stage. Do not be alarmed if at first the hat seems to have lots of small dents that you catch in the light or seems to be otherwise bumpy despite having an overall correct shape. Through each stage, I would wet the felt down again (1 pump between air drying) and smooth it out, tracing the shape I wanted it to have from the outside or pushing up from inside the hat. Eventually, it'll all even out. Work with it. Be patient. Check your source photos...and make sure they're all from the same film as the hat faces slight but significant variations from film to film to film to film and even from scene to scene within a film. If you want the low down on that, check out the "Personalize your hat with custom styling" link at http://www.toddscostumes.com/indy/HJ Indiana Jones Fedora/herbert_johnson_fedora.htm and have at it.

Lastly, I ran across this:

http://www.davidmorgan.com/hatmanual.pdf

Very helpful. And remember, in a trade...whip first, then idol.

Iconoclast color concerns

Oops...hit a wrong button. Haha.