The Fedora's Rise, Fall, and Stubborn Refusal to Disappear

The fedora takes its name from an 1882 play by Victorien Sardou, in which Sarah Bernhardt wore a soft, centre-creased hat. Initially adopted by women's rights activists, it was claimed by men by the 1920s and became the default hat for urban American males of every social class.

The golden age coincided with Hollywood's. Humphrey Bogart's fedora in Casablanca became perhaps cinema's most iconic hat. Cary Grant, Sinatra, and Indiana Jones all reinforced it as a marker of masculine cool. Leaving the house bareheaded was simply not done.

Decline began symbolically with Kennedy's hatless 1961 inauguration. By the late 1960s, hats had fallen from everyday male attire, casualties of counterculture's rejection of formality and automobile culture that made headwear impractical.

The 2000s attempted comeback became cautionary. Cheap trilbies worn with graphic T-shirts became an internet punchline. The problem was context: a fedora demands the architecture of a suit. Proper examples from Borsalino, founded in 1857, remain handsome objects of genuine craft (https://www.borsalino.com).

Part of the 2000s failure was arithmetic. A fedora carries a brim of two and a half inches or more; a trilby's is under an inch and a half, which is why those revival hats sat on the head like ornaments. Britain's own hatters are still working: Lock & Co, established in 1676 and at 6 St James's Street since the 1760s, fits customers with a conformateur, a nineteenth-century French device that traces the plan of the head, because most heads are a long oval and a round hat pinches at the temples.

Material and construction determine success. A quality example is made from rabbit or beaver felt, blocked on a wooden form, finished with grosgrain ribbon. Brim width should relate to shoulder width. Grey and brown are most versatile; black reads as very formal or faintly theatrical.

Felt grading is where money is wasted. Beaver is denser than rabbit, sheds rain and holds a crease far better, and costs several times as much; the X ratings stamped inside American hats are not a standard at all, since each maker defines its own, so a hundred-X from one firm may hold less beaver than a five-X from another. Ask what the felt is. A good rabbit hat from Christys', trading since 1773, runs from about a hundred and fifty pounds, and beaver starts where that ends.

Today the fedora occupies a niche rather than mainstream position. It is worn with conviction by men who understand its requirements: tailored clothing, upright bearing, and confidence to ignore sidelong glances. In Milan and London it remains a natural extension of a considered outfit.

Handle it by the front and back of the brim. Lifting a hat by the crown pinch wears the felt at exactly the point where it eventually splits, and standing it on the brim flattens the curl, so store it upside down or on a stand. Caught in rain, let it dry at room temperature away from a radiator, then brush anticlockwise. A hatter will re-block and re-ribbon a good felt for a fraction of replacement.

The fedora's persistence testifies to enduring power of a well-proportioned design. If you choose to wear one, invest in quality felt, match it to outerwear, and wear it tilted slightly forward. A fedora worn well is one of menswear's most powerful finishing touches.