New Member to the Hat Forum

[Judgmentalist]

Welcome to the Lounge and good hunting. As suggested, spending a few bucks buying and selling on Ebay or Etsy can help you hone into your style without breaking the bank.

Your wife may change her mind when others start to notice your hats. I literally get compliments every time I wear a bowler or a nice homburg.



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Nice thanks for the advice

 

[Blare]

Hello everyone

I’m new here. I stumbled onto this place while obsessively researching hats, thinking that this would be a good place to find hats on the resale market. I have instead found amazing boots and jackets .

Seems counterintuitive at first but I think I’m starting to get it - you don’t buy nuts from a squirrel, is the vibe I’m getting lol.

I’ve never worn hats but I’ve always thought the only hat that looked good on me was a bowler. Unfortunately, my wife disagrees. She thinks I have a tendency to let my more eccentric choices wear me, and I can’t understand why she doesn’t want me to have a personality. That being said she is really good at this stuff, and mostly I listen to her.

I had been losing a bunch of weight and at the moment I’m pretty well settled in at 5’8” 180 lbs.

I’ve been rebuilding my wardrobe, focusing mostly on nice suits and blazers. I’ve been feverishly working on adding a few hats to the mix with very limited success. I bought the cheapest bowler and Homburg I could find and I have been waging a ‘hearts and minds’ campaign around the house. The bowler is not gaining any traction, but we are about 50/50 on the Homburg. I am highly focused on dress-adjacent styles and materials. I may get a classic fedora to start. My wife seems to think this suits my proportions better than the Homburg shape. I gravitate toward the Homburg because of the dress provenance and I like to be just a hair to the side of the beaten path.

I’ve not historically been a fan of western hats, which is frustrating, because there is a lot of cool stuff going on in the custom western market.

I bought a straw Stetson Open Road, because I like the crown, the brim kinda leans away from heavy western, and I thought it was a low cost point of entry. I took it out of the box and it was an immediate fail, both on looks and fit. I need a long oval block, apparently, and the Stetson was tight front and back and loose on the sides. We both thought it was going to work with my summer suits and it just didn’t look right on. Also I wasn’t prepared for it to be so stiff, though in retrospect it seems like I should have figured that out. We boxed back up and sent it back.

I’ve been working my way up the research food chain to the point where I am almost convinced I’m going to end up with a Panama from Brent Black, a fedora from Optimo and a Homburg from Lock & Co.

One of the problems with this plan is I can’t try any of this stuff before I buy. I live out in the boonies, and traveling to where these hats live is problematic for the most part.

I’m about 2 minutes away from buying a conformateur off of Etsy or something.

TL/DR - help me figure out what hat theoretically works for me (I read that hat guide I found here) and how to get from where I am to where I am going without burning a pallet of money along the way, please and thank you.

The size of the crown on the Open Road feels like it fits me better, but something about the front view isn’t working I don’t think.

Looking at the Open Road and the Homburg side by side the Homburg crown and brim both look a little small. What do you guys think?

Welcome to the Lounge

 

[The Connector]

Hello to everyone,
I am quite new here, the reason I became a member is that we have as family a real collector's item, a Lincoln Bennett silk top hat from Victorian era. We have decided to sell it so I am looking for some advices about what and where to look for define its authenticity because we are not the first owners.
Thanx in advance for any help.
And personally, I am quite familiar with hats, I wear one anyway, so I am happy to be a member of FedoraLounge.

 

[jeffgarf]

Hello to everyone,
I am quite new here, the reason I became a member is that we have as family a real collector's item, a Lincoln Bennett silk top hat from Victorian era. We have decided to sell it so I am looking for some advices about what and where to look for define its authenticity because we are not the first owners.
Thanx in advance for any help.
And personally, I am quite familiar with hats, I wear one anyway, so I am happy to be a member of FedoraLounge.

Welcome. PM member @CraigEster . He may have information and advice for you.