Slouch Hats, Bush Hats, Big Game Hunters, and Explorers

The hat makes the adventurer and although it’s a slouch hat, historically wearers of the slouch hat are no slouch and number among explorers, military men, adventurers, and rogues.  They are worn in the tropics and in the desert, in the deepest jungle and on the veldt; bush hats are de rigor wear only second to the pith helmet in the genre of high adventure.

The slouch hat goes back centuries to the late 1500s, with a brim that went from large to huge.  Eventually these hats had one to three pin ups making a bicorn and a tricorn respectively.  But in this little essay, we will talk about those hats that have either only one side or no side pinned up.  Traditionally they are made of felt from a blend of fibers of wool to beaver fur, although some extra light weight hats are made of cotton cloth or canvass, some with heavy stitching to make a stiffener. 

A slouch hat is a soft hat that is not highly stiffened or having an internal frame to keep its structure.  A slouch hat is soft enough to be reshaped easily.   Versatile, easy to carry, they give good head cover and the wide brim keep off sun and rain.  It won’t crush like a pith helmet and can be packed away easily.  It has a chinstrap to hold on in wind and the hat can be pushed back off the head and hang down the back with the strap holding it on.  You really can’t ask for a more useful, forgiving and simple to store hat.

The Australian/New Zealand military hat has one side pinned up so that a rifle can be carried on the shoulder.  Although that might have been the case previously, slouch hats with one side pinned up have become traditionally associated with military and paramilitary forces.  Even stiffened hats such as the Hardee or Jeff Davis hat of American Civil War fame had the side pinned up, although that hat was stiffened and not a slouch hat.  Although both sides in the conflict wore slouch hats, Confederates were generally depicted as wearing slouch hats in writing and depictions of the time.

British military hats often had a puggaree, which was a cloth hatband in distinctive colors or pattern indicating a regiment, mostly worn by the British military overseas.  Other countries also developed military slouch hats for overseas wear.  US military in Vietnam wore a slouch hat for jungle wear with one side pinned up and a handy mosquito net stored inside.

Military hats often had a puggaree, which was a cloth hatband in distinctive colors or pattern indicating a regiment, mostly worn by the British military overseas.  Big game hunters in film use animal pelts like leopard for tiger as a hatband.  Other countries also developed military slouch hats for overseas wear.  US military in Vietnam wore a slouch hat for jungle wear with one side pinned up and a handy mosquito net stored inside.

Traditionally, the American southwest is associated cowboy hats, which are a form of slouch hat, although many of the later forms make it hard to tell its origin.  The slouch hat became so ubiquitous that it often goes unnoticed.  The great thing is that the slouch hat can be worn anywhere for that rugged outdoor look and its clean lines and simple upkeep makes it proper headgear for men and women alike.  Made of felt or canvass, stiffened slightly or crusher style they remain with us both as an icon of times gone by and a useful piece of practical headgear.

Consider adding a slouch hat to your costuming collection or just for wear while camping, hiking or big game hunting.  As always buy quality hats, which will give you years of wear and don’t overlook thrift shops and eBay as sources for headgear and costuming items.

UPDATE: I have a new hat/helmet post -- Mr. Pratt’s Gun Hat or How to Be Fashionable But Deadly in the Trenches   http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2017/05/mr-pratts-gun-hat-or-how-to-be.html

                                    CoastConFan


Other of my posts that might be of interest on hats and costuming in general:  
 

Classic fedora http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2012/07/fedora-hat-of-intrigue-and-danger.html

Pith helmets http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2012/06/pith-helmets-sun-helmets-and-sola.html

Trench coats  http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2012/05/brief-history-of-trench-coats.html

Steampunk and body armor   http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2012/09/armor-steampunk-style-short-history-of.html

FEDORA – the hat of intrigue and danger

You might be surprised about the origin of the fedora hat as well as the hipster icon hat, the trilby.

The fedora is a hat that has remained popular off an on for about a century in all its incarnations.  But did you know that this venerable hat, so associated with 1930s adventure, P.I.s., film noir, and glamour was born from a play?  Victorien Sardu wrote a play for the Victorian superstar Sarah Bernhardt in 1882, called Fedora, which was also the name of the main character.  Sarah Bernhardt wore a hat while playing Fedora on stage and due to this, the hat became very popular and was referred to as a fedora.

Actually, the term fedora covers a variety of hat styles such as the homburg, trilby, and a variety of other hats that have no specific name but similar in style.  The hat may have grown from the mid-Victorian slouch hat, which was popular in the American Civil War.  The slouch hat was rather shapeless but could be formed by the owner.  They were considered an informal hat worn by workers.  But somehow this shapeless hat of the proletariat became stylish and the hat we know and love as the fedora.

 

Fedoras are one of those hats that are evocative of the 20^th century and well ensconced in literature and film of the period.  The aura of danger comes from the association with gangsters, real and fictional and the later film noir genre.  The most famous 20^th century film characters wearing fedoras are Indiana Jones and Humphrey Bogart’s many tough guy roles such as Sam Spade, Duke Mantee, and as the bedraggled American adventurer/prospector Dobbs in Treasure of the Sierra Madre.  Good guys wore fedoras like Indy and Dick Tracy, but bad guys did too, like Al Capone and other gangsters.  The fedora didn’t make you good or bad, but by your deeds you were known and unlike film westerns, the color of your had didn’t predict your character’s actions.

The trilby hat also has literary and Victorian roots.  It comes from the book Trilby by George du Maurier published in 1894 and was a runaway best seller.  On a side-note, Bram Stoker may have used the hypnotism hook by of the evil mesmerist, Svengali in Trilby, when he wrote Dracula (1897), which was also a best seller.  Trilbies can be made of many different materials from hand woven wool, to snappy straw, now so trendy among hipsters.  The trilby also has associations with the Tyrolean hat, so popular in southern Germany and Austria. 

 

Vintage fedoras and trilbies can get quite pricy although you can get lucky sometimes and get one for a good price.  There are a number of hat makers who still make fedoras such as the classic Stetson, and the internet is full of fedoras for sale.  Always try to get the best possible quality and condition, because a good hat can last you a lifetime. 

If you find one you like but want to tweak the shape, you can reshape and reform a hat into a fedora form by using steam, but be careful not to get burned.  I have reshaped a number of hats to a more likeable form using the teakettle steam technique.  It allows you to direct the steam and work the area without wilting the whole hat.

 

For costuming, a fedora can make a very simple costume pop and a homburg can make a three piece suit look like a high roller.  Make sure you store your hats in a clean, dry area in your house and not in an attic, garage or basement.  Any box can make a hatbox if you don’t have an original one available.  Don’t seal up you hat in a plastic container because of the danger of mold due to condensation inside the box.  Let the hat breath a little and add a mothball or better yet, cedar chips which will keep the insects away from the delicious felt.  Believe it or not, moths are less of a hazard than crickets, who seem to just munch away wildly.  This is true of all felt and wool items, so keep your costumes and gear safe.  A fedora makes a good item for Steampunk, a Call of Cthulhu game or any RPG, as a clue or a prop.

LINKS

As a companion post, see my post:   A Brief History of Trench Coats

For more adventurer hats, see also:   Pith Helmets, Sun Helmets, and Sola Topees
Slouch hats, more adventurer hats, added 28 April 2013:  Slouch Hats, Bush Hats, Big Game Hunters, andExplorers

The play Fedora  was written for Sarah Bernhardt by Victorien Sardu  is available for free download from Google Books by clicking on the link.

The book Trilby by George du Maurier is available for free download from Project Gutenberg by clicking on the link.

The book Dracula by Bram Stoker is available for free download from Project Gutenberg by clicking on the link.

This was my 100^th post since starting the CoastConFan Blog.  I really appreciate the support and interest in this obscure niche blog.  I also appreciate the many bloggers who are so sharing of information and images in their blogs and posts.  I hope to continue blogging for years to come.  Thanks!                 CoastConFan

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UPDATE:  a reader sent in this amusing photo that he thought pretty much summed up the state of hat wearing today.  I must admit I used to wear a vintage (1930s) fedora but had to stop because of the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie that came out in 1981.  I sure hope I didn't look quite that badly.

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UPDATE 2:  I just found a scan of that photo mentioned in  the first update --


I'm the guy on the left.