Did you know the men's fedora started out as a fashionable women's hat in the late 19th century? Famed actress Sarah Bernhardt wore the first one as the title heroine when the play Fdora premiered in America in 1889. The hat was popular with women from the 1890s right through the start of the 20th century -- but, after WWI, the hat became a fashion standard for men.
What is It?
Exactly what is a fedora? Simply put, it's a brimmed felt hat. Some people feel it's the lengthwise crease of the crown that makes a fedora, along with the pinch of the crown at the front. But, some fedoras may have no creases whatsoever, or the crease may be teardrop or diamond shaped, rather than long and lengthwise.
The brim of a fedora goes uniformly all around the hat; the outer brim can be left raw, trimmed with an underwelt or an overwelt, bound by a ribbon, or finished. The most common colors are brown, black, tan, and various shades of grey, but fedoras do exist in every color you can imagine.
Regaining Popularity
The hat became popular with men for not just for the style, but for practical reasons too -- a man could protect his head from inclement weather, and then roll it up and stuff it in his pocket. From the 1920s onward, the groups of men who took to wearing fedoras were diverse, from Orthodox Jews to Depression-era gangsters.
The fedora was very popular from the 1920s to the late 1950s, when the wearing of hats by men became less fashionable. By 1970, fedoras were worn only by older men still interested in an old fashion tradition. However, as the 20th century waned, and the 21st century dawned, the fedora was revived as a fashion must.
Famous Fedoras
Fictional characters who wore Fedoras abound:
- Humphrey Bogart's film characters of Sam Spade ("The Maltese Falcon") and Rick Blaine ("Casablanca")
- comic strip police detective Dick Tracy
- adventurer (and professor) Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford
- musical duo The Blues Brothers, played by SNL alumni Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi
- Will Eisner's comic-book hero, The Spirit
And, among the actual people who wore Fedoras are American football coaches Paul "Bear" Bryant and Tom Landry, English footballer Malcolm Allison, and pop star Michael Jackson. English fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett wears one. And the famed German Ampelmnnchen traffic signal wears a Fedora too!
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