lostinperiphery
Well-Known Member
It started with a leather “Australian style” hat I wore as a kid pretending to be Indiana Jones. I didn’t know better, I was 10.
Still as youngster, I later got a generic crushable felt fedora (I was on the right track, but still young, naive, and uninformed)
Fast forward another decade, and I acquired an officially licensed fur Indy hat. It was my first exposure to fur felt hats, and sparked an interest finer felt which evolved into a small collection of wonderful vintage fedoras. But I later came to realize how the shape of that officially licensed hat was all wrong...
Years later, I replaced it with an Akubra Federation IV. It was lovely, and it had that nice blocky crown that I was able to give a proper Indy crease. It was exquisite by most standards, but having become spoiled by vintage felt, i found that it still ranked near the bottom of my hat collection in terms of felt quality. As a hat I wore frequently, I found myself wishing it could be more.
Which brings me to this one, a 100% beaver Raiders hat from John Penman. I can’t imagine a more perfect Indy hat. The felt is wonderful; about as close to quality vintage felt as I can expect to find in a modern hat. Light in stiffener, so the felt is wonderfully soft and flexible, so the brim really takes on a life and character of its own, as opposed to being “molded” in shape like most modern hats. I couldn’t be happier [emoji4]
The only “predecessor” hat I still have is the Akubra, and I am considering distressing it in the true spirit of an adventure hat. The Penman will be an everyday wearing hat, so I want to keep it looking half decent
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Still as youngster, I later got a generic crushable felt fedora (I was on the right track, but still young, naive, and uninformed)
Fast forward another decade, and I acquired an officially licensed fur Indy hat. It was my first exposure to fur felt hats, and sparked an interest finer felt which evolved into a small collection of wonderful vintage fedoras. But I later came to realize how the shape of that officially licensed hat was all wrong...
Years later, I replaced it with an Akubra Federation IV. It was lovely, and it had that nice blocky crown that I was able to give a proper Indy crease. It was exquisite by most standards, but having become spoiled by vintage felt, i found that it still ranked near the bottom of my hat collection in terms of felt quality. As a hat I wore frequently, I found myself wishing it could be more.
Which brings me to this one, a 100% beaver Raiders hat from John Penman. I can’t imagine a more perfect Indy hat. The felt is wonderful; about as close to quality vintage felt as I can expect to find in a modern hat. Light in stiffener, so the felt is wonderfully soft and flexible, so the brim really takes on a life and character of its own, as opposed to being “molded” in shape like most modern hats. I couldn’t be happier [emoji4]
The only “predecessor” hat I still have is the Akubra, and I am considering distressing it in the true spirit of an adventure hat. The Penman will be an everyday wearing hat, so I want to keep it looking half decent
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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