 his is the story of how I bought a hat that turned me into Humphrey Bogart--and how you can do the same. Or maybe you want a topper that will make you an English swell, or an Italian movie director, or just a regular Joe keeping the sun out of his eyes and the rain off his head as he tries to make a living in this lousy world. But let's get something straight: This is not about baseball caps with peaks pulled backwards and over ears. This is about real hats--things with brims that go all the way around--like men wear, or used to wear. |
| It was in the early 1960s that things went wrong. President Kennedy was bareheaded at his inauguration. The Beatles showed up, flaunting their locks. You know the rest. You can walk a lot of pavement in a lot of towns these days before you meet a fedora. But with winter coming on, it's time you wised up. Remember what your father knew. As much as 80% of the body heat that you lose in cold weather goes off the top of your head. And let's face it: As we age, the heat loss accelerates. |
| If you want quality, don't even look at a hat that costs less than a C-note ($100), and get ready to pony up two or three times that. Too much? You spend $300 on a pair of shoes. You think that people look at your feet before your head? If you take care of it and you stay out of the way of bullets, a good hat will last forever. |
| The good ones are made of fur, often a blend of farm-bred rabbit, wild hare, and beaver. The hairs are shaved from the pelt and sent through a series of baths in very hot water and, at the same time, forced together under great pressure. Fibers have barbs, and as the fibers shrink, the barbs cling to one another. The result is a sturdy felt. Beavers produce the thickest and softest hairs, so the more of their fibers in the mix, the smoother the felt to the touch, the tougher against a cold rain--and the more expensive the hat. |
| The felt hat industry in the U.S. is still alive, thanks largely to Westerns. The largest manufacturer, Hat Brands of Garland, Texas, owns the Dobbs, Resistol, and Stetson brands, and makes a full line that includes fedoras. Because it's privately owned, Hat Brands doesn't reveal its revenues or which hats sell best. But you don't have to take a head count in Montana to appreciate the big market for Westerns. Walk into a C&W bar anywhere and watch the cowboy and cowgirl wannabes stride onto the dance floor underneath their Stetson Ranchers and Tanya Fes. Cowboy hats are bigger and heavier than fedoras, and so are their prices. A top-of-the-line Rancher retails for about $1,000. |
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 ther than Westerns, the best ready-made felts come from Europe. Lock & Co. of London sells proper and handsome fedoras for up to $185. Borsalino of Italy makes sexier ones with more sensuous lines for up to $300. Approach a Borsalino carefully. A few years ago the Italians licensed a U.S. company to make an inexpensive line. I'll level with you: a cheap line. The agreement ended, but some of those inferior Borsalinos may still be on shelves somewhere. |
| Most salesmen don't know anything about hats, except for those who work in the few top-quality shops. So test the quality yourself. Put one hand inside and pop the crease out. Spin the dome against the palm of your other hand. If the felt bites, drop it. It should be as smooth as a baby's behind. The inside band ought to be made of leather and sewn in, rather than glued. And before you buy the hat, grab the salesman by the collar and ask him whether the store will clean your hat when it gets dirty, because if you hand it to your dry cleaner, he'll pretend he's never seen a hat before. |
| Recently I decided to add another felt to my rack, and rather than buy a ready-made, I figured I'd have one custom made. A hat is supposed to fit all your dimensions, not just the circumference of your skull. The taller you are and the heavier your face, the higher the crown should be, the wider the brim. Unfortunately, hatmakers have disappeared, even from New York, Chicago, and other big cities. A couple of pros in the West make beautiful cowboy hats, but Garth Brooks is not me. |
| Detective work turned up the name of Gary White, owner of the Custom Hatter in Buffalo, who will bend felt any way you want it--into a hat from a movie or a magazine, or into a replica of your grandfather's bowler. I phoned White. We talked about the Indiana Jones look. Nice, but too country for my style. Then he mentioned Bogart. For $243 (including sales tax), White would make me a taupe fedora with a wide black band and a brim that snaps down over the eyes, the signature "Bogart roll" seen in movies like The Maltese Falcon. He had me. |
| I mailed White a couple of Polaroids of my mug, front and side views, as well as height and head measurements. In a couple of weeks the hat was ready. White would have mailed it to me--as he'll do for you. But I wanted to know more about what makes the guy tick, so I went to Buffalo to pick up my hat. At 41, White seems almost too young and energetic to be in an old, maybe dying, craft. He didn't disappoint me. My new Bogart rested lightly and comfortably at the right distance over my ears. To an ordinary hat salesman I am just a 7 3/8, but my pictures told White that I was a 7 3/8 long oval. If I had come in for a fitting, White could have put my head into an antique wood- and-spring contraption called a conform, which measures bumps and dents. |
| He showed me the bodies--raw pieces of felt that White imports, mostly from Eastern Europe. Each body is a single piece of round felt that rises to a dome in the middle. It is already dyed and looks almost like a hat, but shaggy and shapeless. White clamps the body into a 19th-century blocker, a menacing piece of iron. He steams and stretches the crown over one of 300 head-shaped poplar blocks. Later, with a high-pressure steam iron, he molds the brim over one of 250 wooden flanges. He trims and scrapes, and with ever finer grades of pumice, he polishes the hat to a baby-smooth finish. He turns out about 500 a year. |
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 hite was not born to hatmaking. After college the only work he could find was as a stock boy brushing off hats in a Buffalo department store. He worked his way up to head hat buyer and grew to love hats so much so that 16 years ago he quietly asked the Dobbs sales representative to put him in touch with a hatmaker. "He thought I was crazy," White recalls. But a year later the Dobbs man introduced White to the late Henry Goldstein, a hatmaker in Lynn, Massachusetts. White commuted to Goldstein's shop every weekend for a year to master the vanishing craft. |
| Some of White's tips on hat care: To protect the brim, put the hat away upside down. Rain won't destroy the shape of a good felt. If it's drenched, pull the inside band down and stand the hat on it, at room temperature, not near heat. Even a good hat might shrink a little, so have it stretched every now and then. |
| And you want to know whether my new hat really makes me look like Bogart. You bet it does. If it didn't, why would I be sitting here wearing it pushed up on my forehead and dreaming that my office door is frosted glass with the name Sam Spade painted on it. Any minute now a beautiful dame is going to walk in. |
