We are Chicagoans. We do not want to rush the oncoming winter. It is still road construction season and there is no way we would want to usher in our other three arctic seasons: winter, winter and winter. (Technically, we only have two seasons in Chicago: Winter and Road Construction.) It is still time to relax in our straw hats, sip a cold brew while listening to a ball game on WGN radio and grill up some burgers and brats at the end of the day as the joyous hum of the cicadas echo from tree to tree. Trees covered in lush GREEN leaves.

It is still summer and will, thankfully, remain so for another 2 months.

…buuuuuut…We did receive a shipment recently. A first of many shipments still to come, which won’t likely arrive for a little while longer. Heck, we don’t even have this shipment online–yet.

However, we also thought you might like to know our newest arrivals are in and being processed  as we speak. What are they?

These two new men’s hats are Bailey’s Downturn Center Dent and Downturn Teardrop. Each reflects the stylized brim that is preformed and down in both the front and back. Their crown shapes are pretty self-evident, too.

While we will soon add a photo to this post for you to better see, each hat is made from a premium blend of wool and fur felt.  This blended felt helps to deliver a sharper color quality while better maintaining a blocked shape. As with other top-of-the-line hats, these Bailey hats have satin linings and leather sweatbands. Each of these features helps to protect in hat from the oils in your hair and skin. Unlike other high-end hat brands, these carry a more affordable price.

Best of all, each model of hat is made right here in the U.S.A.

Our resident Hat Whisperer shapes a crown on a Borsalino Sarakon to give it a deeper narrower pinch.

What does it take to shape a fur felt hat?

Patience.

After a long winter or an unpredictable spring cloud burst your trusty fedora has gotten a little mishapen. Perhaps you’ve just purchased a new fedora and you want to customize it to look a little more “you.” Maybe you want the pinch to be a little narrower or the center crease to be a little deeper.

Fixing and adjusting your hat can be fairly easy if you just take the time to be patient with it.

The only tool you will need is a tea kettle. You will need it as a steamer; so fill it with water and set it over a fire on the stove.

Once it is steaming up, you will be ready to work some magic on your hat. Steam will help loosen the fibers and starches that are holding your hat’s present shape. Place the exterior side of the part of your hat that you want to adjust over the steam. Hold it there only until you feel the heat on the interior side of the felt. This takes no longer than 15 to 20 seconds. (You don’t want to over do it. You also don’t want to turn off the flame under the kettle. You’ll need more steam.)

Once you have steamed the part of your hat you want to alter, the felt is ready to manipulate. Work slowly and gently with your hands.

If you want a deeper center crease, steam the whole crease. Then gently push the crown down with the length of your open hand. In a freeze frame photo, it will look like you are giving the top of your hat a karate chop. Once you have the crease set where you like it, blow it dry with you mouth, and then let the hat set for 5 or 10 minutes. If you can’t get it to set right, use more steam and start again.

Make sure to keep your pinches even and give them time to set.

Say you want a deeper pinch in the crown to bring the pinches closer together in the front. Steam both pinches. Place your fingers inside the crease of the crown and gently press your palms into each pinch. Blow the pinch dry and let it set, and if you aren’t satisfied, just keep using a little steam.

Check out the photos of resident Hat Whisperer Edwin Urrutia as he reshapes a crown to have two pinches that are deeper and closer together.

Brims sometime warp, and your best bet to fix it is to turn the entire brim up and then steam it. Spin the brim over the steamer to get an even application of steam to the whole brim. Then rotate the brim counter clockwise using your thumb and forefinger to smooth it out. This might take a lot of steam and rotating. Once the warp seems smoothed out, make sure to blow it dry and to let the brim set for a good 5 to 10 minutes before turning the brim back down, if you normally wear the brim turned down. If a warp or bump in the brim is particularly bad, sometimes you’ll have to steam it and press it on a flat surface with the heel of your hand.

If you prefer your hat’s brim to dip extra low on one side, steam and a little training by hand will help get it the way you like it.

Those are the basics of reshaping a hat. We hope it helps. Please feel free to write in with your questions.

Check out the smokin' hot new diamond crown fedora by Borsalino!

Leave it to Borsalino to show how it is done. Its new diamond crown fedora is heads and shoulders above the rest.  Available in black and grey, this fur felt beauty also stays on top of the stingy brim trend. It is ideal for making the scene both in the club and at work. It truly is in a class all of its own.

To learn more about it click here to go to the Hats Plus website or visit the shop in Chicago and try one on today!

Set in 1954, DiCaprio and Ruffalo take on the classic detective look of the era. Short ties, raincoats and fedoras. The look works great for them, especially DiCaprio, who doesn’t have your typically dashing Hollywood mug. Yet for both men, the dress hats help frame their faces well.

Leonardo DiCaprio wears a grey fedora similar to this Biltmore Stewart fur felt dress hat in the movie "Shutter Island." The feather is optional, and you can pluck yours to look more like Leo.

DiCaprio and Ruffalo appear to wear different colors of the same model hat. The fur felt fedoras have a C-crown, or teardrop-shaped crown, that is wrapped with a medium to wide bow band–no feather.  Naturally, each government man wears his snap brim in the down position.

The fedora worn by DiCaprio looks like a Biltmore Stewart in steel or a Stetson Downs in caribou with a dark band. Ruffalo’s hat is harder to place. Although it is the same shape as the hats just named, we don’t carry those models in the tan/tawny felt with a dark brown band. We DO have have center-dent crown fedoras with similar coloring. The Selentino Sterling in light camel and the Stetson Temple in tawny will work nicely.  If you want a fancier silk finish to the hat, the Stetson Firenze in tawny also is great.

No matter what you choose, you’ll be sure to cause a sensation. At the bar, at the office, at the party…just stay away from the asylum.

Hats made from beaver felt are considered to be among the best made. The Pinnacle is considered the best dress hat made by Stetson because it is made of genuine beaver felt.

The felt for men’s hats normally is made from one of three kinds of fur: beaver, rabbit or wool. Beaver felt is considered the rarest and most refined of the three. Felt is made by matting the soft undercoat hairs of these fur coats and then treating them with hot water and steam, pressing them, folding them and repeating many times until the individual hairs are indistinguishable and a fabric has formed a tight bond. Mercury nitrate used to help speed up this process, but the fumes in poorly ventilated work spaces drove many hatters to insanity. Thus the birth of the phrase “mad as a hatter.”

As a fabric, felt is one of the strongest, and oldest, natural fabrics made by humans. Its strength helps to make it a durable material for hats. When treated properly, it can last for many years. However, repeated exposure to heat and moisture also trigger felt’s natural tendency to shrink.

After the felt is made and dyed, it is then blocked on special handmade wooden models. It is carefully steamed and pressed into place. The brim is crafted in a device called a flange. The brim gets a treatment of flattening with steam and pressure. Stiffeners are added to help the brim hold its shape. Many manufactures do not treat the crowns of fedoras and pork pies with stiffeners, but bowlers are especially prone to stiffening. Dress hats made of wool are more likely to see stiffener, regardless of their style.

Once the hat has its shape, it is sanded to a smooth and even texture. The inner lining is added next, along with the leather sweat band. Both items provide comfort and protect the hat. The lining is particularly important for protecting the felt (and any stiffener) from the oils and styling products in your hair. The outer hat band and other trimmings are added last.

Of course, this is just the basics of how it is done. Stetson will make its hats a little differently than Biltmore, which makes its hats a little differently from Borsalino, and so on.

“Hats in History” is a new feature looking at the great personalities of the past century and the hats they wore.

This photo from 1964 shows Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King. Dr. King is wearing a short-brimmed fedora similar to the Dobbs Dayton or Dynafelt Pinch sold at Hats Plus. The photo was taken by Herman Hiller.

To get things started, it seemed like a good idea to start with one the most influential Americans of the 20th century: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King is most famous for his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement and use of nonviolence to help eliminate segregation and promote the dream of equality for all American citizens, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender or creed. He risked death daily to stand by his principles and was eventually assassinated for them at the age of 39. Before his death, Dr. King was one of the youngest recipients to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace, and he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

He also was a hat man who kept up with the times. Dr. King can be seen in many pictures wearing several different style fedoras.

During the mid-’50s and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dr. King was often photographed in a wide-brimmed light grey fedora with a black band. The hat had a center dent crown, and it looks similar to the Stetson Pinnacle and the Stetson Temple.

In the 1960s he was photographed in several stingy-brim fedoras. Although the colors varied, the hats had a wide dress band, center-dent crown and a fairly wide space between the pinch on either side of the hats. These are similar to our Dobbs Dayton and Dynafelt Pinch.

It is critical for every American to carry Dr. King’s legacy of peace and equality in their memory and actions. However if you want to wear the legacy of his fashion sense, the Pinnacle, Temple, Dayton or Pinch are a great place to start.

You will never go wrong following these generally accepted principles of hat wearing. First you will need to make sure your hat fits properly. A men’s dress hat should rest about a finger’s width above your ears and eyebrows.

While checking in the mirror, you’ll want the hat to be centered on your head, with the brim perpendicular to your nose or parallel to your eyebrows. You will also want the brim of the hat to dip no farther down than your eyebrows. This way the hat won’t obscure your vision.

That said, a lot of movie stars and jazzmen make a fedora look awfully dashing by cocking it to one side. Other people like to wear their fedoras higher up and back, exposing their forehead. Some prefer it dipped low over one or both eyes.

And then there is the advice an old Chicago bluesman once gave a friend of mine that went something like this as he observed someone at the blues club wearing their fedora cocked back high on their head: “Only hayseed rubes from the country wear their hats up high like that. Real city cats wear them down a little over their eyes.”

The bluesman proceeded to adjust the guy’s hat for him.

The Borsalino Antonio fedoras are very colorful and attractive men's hats.

One of the newest fedoras we carry is also one of the most sublimely radiant. The colors used on the Borsalino Antonio are remarkably rich, lustrous hues that are unlike those on any other hats in the store.

The Italian-made design is second to none with its classic style and contemporary look. This Borsalino features a distinguished high center-dent crown and a stylish short brim. Made from a lightweight fur felt, this fedora is extremely soft and supple. This men’s hat is also part of Borsalino’s “Rain Proof Line.” Although we don’t recommend wearing it in a deluge, it is one of the most weather-friendly fur felt hats Borsalino makes.

You might think that an Italian-made hat that offers so many features would cost a fortune, but you’d be wrong. The Borsalino Antonio is a remarkably affordable value for all that it offers.

The peak of ’60s business chic, Draper’s short-brimmed felt fedora closely resembles the Dobbs Jet in sable. Its center-dent crown offers classic styling, while the wide dress band and 1 7/8^-inch brim give it that mod feel. Its satin lining and leather sweatband help protect the hat as it rests

In the TV show "Mad Men" marketing mogel Don Draper wears a hat very similar to this Dobbs Jet in saber.

comfortably on your brow.

Got a favorite hat you’ve seen in the movies or on TV? Ask us about it, and we’ll do our best to match you up with one.