Fedoras

JJ Hat Center on 5th Ave between 31st and 32nd is a great store for hats of all sorts. The guys there are knowledgeable and friendly, and can always be counted on to help you find something suitable. I go in there a lot just to try different things on, as it's just around the corner from my office. (And by the way, they're all shoe freaks too, so extra points for you if you walk in wearing EGs....)

I have a water repellent wool felt fedora... love it. I don't get to wear it often though. $20 at TJ Maxx if I remember right.

Check out Bencraft:

http://www.bencrafthats.com/

As a counterpoint to Sator's pimping of RM Williams, Akubra are generally considered to be very high quality, especially for the price. I'm sure they have at least one stockist in NY somewhere.

If you are looking for a wool felt fedora, try a Golden Gate hat

http://www.aztexhats.com

I purchased one last month and I'm very happy with it. More so than the Stetson in fur felt that I paid twice as much for.

Just a warning. Their size chart runs a little to the large size. I wear a 7 1/4 but purchased a M rather than the L they suggested. It fit perfectly.

I started a thread on Fedoras last year that apparently got lost in the Great Crash of '06. Borsalino came highly recommended and I bought an excellent roll hat for somewhere in the neighborhood of $350 -- no doubt more than you or most people want to spend.

when you go, be sure to ask about the Cervo fedora. if you're going to buy a hat, that's the one you want-- or at least a fun one to know when you go speak with hatters. i have one, and it is a magnificent hat.

http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar...22,556,00.html

http://www.cappellificiocervo.it/

I purchased mine via contacting the gents at www.hatshop.com

Borsalino stop making quality hats over 25 years ago. If you think cheap looking shoes look bad, a cheap fedora is worst.

If you really want a quality (new) fedora, I think Optimo is the best way to go. They're made to very high standards by a fellow named Graham Thompson, and have impeccable styling. Problem is, they start at $425 bucks. But fedora aficionados everywhere feel that they make a great fedora.

Otherwise, I find eBay for vintage fedoras is a very viable and much cheaper option. I myself (being a 20 year old college student) cannot afford an Optimo and have instead resorted to the auction site of choice. Older Borsalinos are very high quality when you can find one in good condition. I've got two myself. alas they could really use a reblocking and a new sweatband, so I haven't worn them in some time.

Well, I'm quite happy with the quality of mine, and the recommendation was made right here on Style Forum.

Well, it is true that the quality of the felt has gone down over the years but in a way it only makes sense. Demand for hats has gone down too over the same time and so to the need for a quality hat.

Borsalino may not be the hat it once was but this no way changes the fact that it is about as good as one could expect it to be at the price point it is offered at. The market for super expensive hats is not there as it once was as the priorities of people have changed.

I wear many inexpensive hats straws to be specific and get perfectly good service out of them. It doesn't take much to beat a straw hat up and if you wish to call them disposable hats I suppose they are. But at the price point I think they are a bargain both vintage and new.

Like most things in life what we have available today is a product of the demand set for it. If everyone suddenly wanted a fine felt hat, the market would find a way to answer that demand but until then most of us will make do with what is sold to us today.

For the most part nobody will know the difference in what you wear unless they are connoisseurs of fine hats and believe me they are few and far between.